The Further Adventures Of
by Random-Battlecry
Summary: The long anticipated, quite inebriated, nearly cremated, never sated,addle pated, highly rated, KissMeKateed, badly fated, widely hated sequel to Whose Lair Is It Anyway. In which chaos ensues generally.
1. An Inauspicious Beginning

**A/N: I do this against my better judgement, which has taken quite a beating lately. Its surprising I have any judgement left, let alone the quality of it. So. If this goes absolutely nowhere, don't hate me. I fear burnout. It happens to the best of us, and I'm afraid it may shortly happen to the worst. **

**On the other hand, if it doesn't, the structure will be much like WLIIA was— ie., none at all. Have a nice day.**

**Title: The Further Adventures Of...**

**Description: The long anticipated, quite inebriated, nearly cremated, never sated, addle-pated, highly rated, Kiss-Me-Kate-ed, badly fated, widely-hated sequel to Whose Lair Is It Anyway. In which things blow up, children are born, haircuts are given, chaos ensues, and Patrick Raoul gets laid, which may or may not have something to do with the children that are born.**

**By Random Battlecry**

_**With Appearances by the Usual Suspects and an Unnatural Cast of Characters**_

_**Currently beta-less, co-writerless, and accepting applications and suggestions of all sorts, though this doesn't exactly mean I will pay attention or even listen to them.**_

_**More notes in bold.**_

_**And italics.**_

**Chapter One: An Inauspicious Beginning**

**The Tai**

It wasn't a dark and stormy night.

It was rather dim and gloomy, however, and light precipitation pattered over the roof of the Opera Populaire, with the possibility of heavier rains later on, according to the weatherman. He was usually wrong, but since no one ever listened to him anyway, it didn't much matter. Inside the Opera House, the few performers that called it home (when they weren't calling it other, less-printable things) were settling down for the night.

Underneath, a figure stirred.

It was nighttime— the time his soul came alive.

This is not to say that he was dead during daylight hours.

Or that he was a vampire in any way.

It was a misguided attempt at being poetic, and it shan't happen again.

The figure stirred again.

He stirred once more.

He was stirring a pot.

The pot bubbled and boiled, and he crouched over it as though he were a witch, about to recite some arcane Edgar Allen Poe jingle, and it was a brew-up of newts and frogs legs (less unlikely than you might think, considering this was France). It wasn't, though.

It was his dinner.

He hadn't got much of an appetite, which, perhaps, helped to explain the reason for his skeletal thinness. His body was, as was mentioned not ten words ago, skeletally thin. Words cannot describe how skeletally thin he was— except, of course, for "skeletal" and "thin."

He wore black— pitch black.

His eyes were yellow— yellow as amber.

He wore a mask— a masklike mask. A masque. Because he was French. And we like to be correct about these things.

He was, in short, not Raoul de Chagny.

"Dang," said VictoriaTai from behind him.

He jumped, he whirled, he felt for his punjab— which, inexplicably, was not where he had left it.

Tori waved it at him.

"Looking for this?"

A wordless snarl escaped his lips, and he moved forward. Tori stood up straight and squared her shoulders.

"You will listen to me."

He stopped short and glared fury at her.

"You will listen to me, and you will do as I say," she said clearly, pushing her dark hair back from her face and blinking as a kamikaze gnat flew at her eyes.

Underneath the mask, his lips twisted.

"Why?" he bit out.

"Because," said VictoriaTai definitely, "that is the way it is Written. And please don't make me go into the spiel Random wrote about the power of fiction. It's a load of crap and I'd feel embarrassed. Even if its just you who'd hear me. I don't know why they sent me to get you anyway— I wanted to go for Patrick Raoul."

Something stirred in his brain, and the expression in the yellow eyes turned to horror.

Lips barely moving, he managed to choke out a few words.

"Whose— Lair—"

In spite of herself, Tori grinned.

"That's right," she said, almost kindly. "Now are you going to come quietly? Or do I have to use ear plugs?"

Thus was the first one captured.

**The Bee**

"I've been warning you."

Erik Destler looked up at her sullenly. "Have you."

"Yes. I said, if you don't get out of my basement, some fool is going to write a sequel, and hook you into it. I warned you that you wouldn't be able to escape."

He stood, staring down at the woman, anger blazing in his eyes. His voice was soft and refined when he spoke, however, and it was clear to see that, had he not been rather attached to her, he would have gotten very violent indeed.

"After all this time—"

"Its only been a month," said Honeybee, trying not to melt as he reached a hand to her chin and turned her face up to look at him.

"And you sheltered me. You kept me down here and fed me and clothed me—"

That was it. Clothes.

"You—" she said, and swallowed hard. "You owe me twenty dollars for those pants."

He stopped and stared at her. Money had clearly never entered his mind. They had a lucrative relationship as it stood, from his point of view— she paid for everything he needed, and he rewarded her with intelligent conversation, a touch from time to time.

"How am I supposed to get money?" he inquired, genuinely bewildered.

"Maybe, I dunno— get a job?"

Honeybee's sweet voice suddenly hardened into something Erik Destler had not heard before. He looked at her, bemused and still rather angry.

"A job?" he repeated. "You would tell me— me— to get— a job?"

His hand moved toward her throat, and the Bee said, grinning, "Listen to me."

He stopped dead.

"I did warn you."

Thus was the second one captured.

**The Chat**

Kay Erik, meanwhile, having some time ago gotten over the fact that Kay Christine had never come down to the lair after him, and had left him for the fop, and had apparently gotten bored with her husband and had a child with someone else entirely—

No, strike that.

That still rather irked him.

He brooded over it— something that Eriks are, by their very nature, surprisingly good at.

It was a dark and angsty sort of brood, the kind of brood that shows up unexpectedly on a winter day when the trees are bare and the snowbitten wind blows from the north— wait, I said no more of the poetic stuff, didn't I.

It was a bad mood.

He saw a cricket in front of him and stepped on it, squashing it ruthlessly between the flagstone floor and the sole of his highly-polished dress shoe.

"Dang," said Le Chat, jumping into his lap, "I wanted to play with that."

"Ayesha!" howled Kay Erik, trying to push her off— she avoided his hands and jumped onto the nearby mantel, where she hissed at him, rather peeved.

"I am not either!"

"Ayesha!"

"No Ayesha!"

Kay Erik stood up straight and glared wildly at her. He was breathing rather heavily.

"You're not Ayesha?"

"No! For heaven's sake, do I even look like Ayesha?"

"No, but—"

"Can Ayesha talk, hmm? Can Ayesha run a bar, I'd like to know?"

Kay Erik raised a hand to his face and clutched at his forehead underneath the mask.

"Wh— who are you and what are you doing here?"

"I," said Le Chat, "am Le Chat—" And she sat down and started licking her own shoulder.

Kay Erik blinked.

"And I am here," said Le Chat, carefully, then suddenly glared wickedly at him, and leapt onto his shoulder, "to capture you."

"What!" shouted Kay Erik, trying to get her off. But cats can cling like nobody's business when they want to, and Le Chat wanted to.

"You—" said Le Chat.

"Get off!"

"Will—"

Kay Erik performed a frenetic and undignified dance in a circle. Le Chat merely climbed onto his head.

"Listen—"

More actions. More violence. More Chat.

"To me," Chat finished.

Kay Erik stood stock still.

"God in heaven," he sobbed, "not again!"

Thus was the third one captured.

All over the world— well, alright, not exactly all over the world, but in certain parts of the world, to be sure— Eriks and Phantoms were being caught, enslaved with words, and hauled ruthlessly into the light of reality, brought to face the woman they had all learnt to loathe and fear—

Currently, she was in the shower.

So they had to wait.


	2. Wrist Buffet

**A/N: I'm sure you will remember quite a few of the Writers, as they were insane enough to volunteer a second time, but there are some changes to a few of the names. Honeybee, for instance, is sparklyscorpion here on ff dot net. Mistressphantomshadow is The Maiden Amorisa. More will be explained as needs be— maybe. **

**Chapter Two: Wrist Buffet**

A cold wind blew that day, evil and foul-smelling, bringing on its frigid breath a scent like death, a taste of destruction, the cold shiver of horror, the metallic tang of blood, the feral devastation of a war-torn land.

But enough about the weather.

We've got a total lack of plot to get on to.

The point about the wind was someone had the door of the recently-enlarged Administration Office open, and the wind blew towards the feet of the man who stood there, ruffling the hem of his long black coat (with silver buttons). He had his arms folded, and looked slightly peeved. Largely, he was peeved because Random had gone out and gotten the exact twin of his long black coat (with silver buttons) even though on her it dragged several feet behind her on the floor. He had tried to get her to go out and buy a nice feminine _pink_ coat, but she had laughed at him and then tripped over her tails.

He was tall. He was pale. He was skinny. And Adison the PR Agent had given him some glue, so he had finally gotten his mask to stick. Of course, the fact that he now couldn't get it off again was somewhat worrying, but at the moment there were bigger things afoot.

Lots and lots of bigger things.

Worse, most of them were taller than he as well.

He looked at the highly irritated stream of Eriks that were being marched into the room, their arms held firmly by dozens of dedicated Writers. Their faces were thunderous without exception, angry and hateful and furious and full of hate and raging and hating— Stalker Erik made himself stop listing synonyms. He wrote stories now as well as poetry, but was discovering that there were quite a few drawbacks to being a full-blown phic writer. When he had discovered this, sitting at Random's desk alternately doodling in the margin and closing his fingers in the drawer, Random and a bunch of the other Writers had gathered around and poked at him and said, "Ha. Ha, ha ha. Ha."

Which he didn't appreciate.

He likewise didn't appreciate it when Random snapped the chain around his wrist and said, "See how _you_ like being shackled to a desk and made to write twenty four hours a day, sometimes twenty_ five_—" and then threatened him with Mistressphantomshadow until he agreed to write some comedy.

Even more than this, it really irked him when they all left the room, turned off the light and shut the door, leaving him behind chained to a very heavy desk.

He shook himself out of his angry reverie and stepped forward to the front rank of captured Eriks.

The one in the lead happened to be Kay Erik.

"Oh dear," whispered Mandy. She and Celtic Heart each had one of Crawford Phantom's arms, and had, up till now, been enjoying a pleasant conversation with this rather genial and friendly Erik.

"What?" whispered Celtic Heart back.

"I said, oh dear."

"What?"

"I said, oh dear!"

"Really?"

"Yes."

"I just said that too!"

They glanced at each other, then up at Crawford Phantom.

"Listen, hon, would you mind just keeping custody of yourself for a second? We need to talk."

"Anything for you two lovely ladies," said Crawford Phantom, with a slight smile. He had been easy to catch— at least, he had been easy to catch once the Dynamic Duo had set up the specially-adapted weasel trap that Mandy had bought off E-bay. It's a highly interesting story, but it will have to be explained later on, as it hasn't been entirely thought up yet.

CH and Mandy stepped out of the crowd of Eriks and watched the show.

"You'd think Stalker Erik would get it by now," whispered Mandy.

"What?" said Celtic Heart.

"Never mind," said Mandy with a sigh. They stood and watched the sea of Eriks for a bit.

"You know," said Celtic Heart, "you'd think that Stalker Erik would get it by now."

Mandy peered at her. "Get what?"

"That Kay Erik doesn't like him."

Mandy shrugged, returning her gaze to Stalker Erik, who stood, stalwart and intrepid, or possibly not, attempting to out-baleful Kay Erik.

"Kay Erik doesn't like anyone."

"True."

But Kay Erik especially did not like Stalker Erik. It was the widely held opinion that the reason for this was because the two were so much alike— but we'll leave that to the reader to decide.

Stalker Erik cleared his throat.

"Welcome," he said.

Kay Erik glared.

Stalker Erik managed a weak smile.

"You," said Kay Erik. "I demand that you make these two women let me go at once."

Stalker Erik flicked his gaze down to Allison and Regina, who were clutching tightly to Kay Erik's arms. It could not be said of these two that they were neglecting their duty, although the coy glances they were sending him from underneath their eyelashes were probably not part of their job description.

He glanced back up.

"Sorry, but it's the rules."

"Rules?" hissed Kay Erik.

Stalker Erik threw a book at him. It hit Kay Erik just above the collar bone, and the look in the eyes of the infuriated Erik was enough to make it painfully clear that it had been a bad idea. His fingers twitched, he detached Allison and Regina, and looked like he was about to make something else painfully clear as well.

Stalker Erik backed off.

"It slipped!" he babbled. "I was just trying to show it to you and it slipped—"

Kay Erik growled and lunged for him. It would have been a painful experience for the stalker except that MPS was right there, and she threw herself in front of Kay Erik.

"_I'll save youuuuu_—"

There was a crunch as the two of them hit the floor.

Stalker Erik winced.

"Er—"

"Ow," said MPS from beneath Kay Erik, and then giggled. "My, Kay Erik, I'm glad to see you again too!"

He grunted and pushed himself away but she grabbed his shoulders and pulled him down again.

"I knew an Erik would love me someday!"

"Er— MPS," said Mandy kindly. "I don't think he appreciates you doing— what you're doing."

"What? I can't help it, I'm a hopeless romantic."

"Hopeless romantic does not mean 'all about sex,'" said Stalker Erik. "Just to clarify."

"Well, then I'm _not_ a hopeless romantic, what of it?"

The horrified silence was broken by a bass voice, singing wildly.

Leroux Erik looked up, his eyes wild.

"_No_—" he said.

"Oh _yes_," said about eighty percent of the phangirls.

It had taken four Writers to capture Gerry Phantom. Well, alright, it didn't really take that many— but about twenty had volunteered, and these four were the chosen few. Killthefop, Twisted, Grace, and Mademoiselle Phantom led him in, holding onto his coat possessively, and looking up at him with adoring eyes as he sang.

"_Cecelia— I'm down on my knees— I'm begging you please, to come home— come on home_—"

Kay Erik, from his position on the floor which looked decidedly uncomfortable, scoffed, and then choked as MPS pulled his head down and viciously attacked it with her face.

"Hey, hey now," murmured Stalker Erik, nudging them with his foot and, mostly, looking relieved that it wasn't him on the floor. MPS's reaction to this was to flip Kay Erik over and try to rip off his shirt.

By this time, however, Celtic Heart had found the hose and turned it on full blast.

MPS shrieked. Kay Erik shouted. But it worked, and the two of them, bedraggled and wet, scooted away from each other on the floor.

CH looked at Kay Erik nervously, awaiting the reaction.

"Th-thank you," he said, his teeth chattering, hugging his arms around himself.

She sighed, as Becky went to help MPS up. "Why do I get the horrible feeling that the hose is going to be necessary a lot during the course of this thing?"

"Maybe we can convince Random to keep it below ten chapters," suggested Stalker Erik. Celtic Heart glared at him.

"You just don't want the hose turned on you for any reason."

"Right on," said Stalker Erik, and snorted.

"Well, maybe if you wouldn't keep walling people—"

"WALL!" he shouted, bayed out a laugh, and clapped a hand over his mouth, snorting furiously through his nose. Celtic Heart sighed testily and went on.

"Or if you would just put your silverware away once in a while—"

"FORK!"

"Or if you could possibly stop turning ordinary household objects into double entendres—"

"Eh—" said Stalker Erik, dropping his hands to his sides again. He looked thoughtful. "Alright."

There was a murmur of protest from most of the PPNers in the room, but he simply shrugged.

"Wall?" said SimplyElymas, looking totally baffled.

"In-joke," whispered Allison to her, with a nudge.

"Ah."

"Its carried over from PPN... that tends to happen a lot, and if you don't go there, you probably won't get a lot of what's going on."

"You kidding?" said SimplyElymas, blinking at her. "I can follow any conversation! It's a talent."

Allison shrugged. "Be that as it may—"

"Alright," said Celtic Heart, and rapped on Mandy's head with her knuckles.

"Ow," said Mandy.

"Can I have everyone's attention please? Thank you. Now, we need all of you Eriks just seated at the large table in the—"

"TABLE!" shouted SimplyElymas.

There was dead silence, and everyone turned to look at her.

She blinked pleasantly at them all.

Stalker Erik clutched at his stomach.

"What is it, this— strange feeling of foreboding I have—"

"His French senses are tingling," muttered Adison to Hoshi, and the two of them snickered. Stalker Erik glared at them and they went quiet. The minute he turned away again they continued laughing.

Stalker Erik looked around him, at the crowded Administration Office filled to the brim with highly peeved Eriks and slightly bored Writers, at the newly-strengthened ranks of the minions, at the lemon that was, oddly enough, stuck on the ceiling, at the door through which Random would undoubtedly be plowing any minute now, at the sketch of him shirtless that hung on one wall—

He frowned.

"Hey."

"Sorry," murmured Twisted, "I got inspired."

"By _what_, exactly?" he asked, baffled. Twisted sniggered.

MPS opened her mouth to start monologueing on how Stalker Erik was the hottest thing around, but Monj alertly stuck a lemon in her mouth and so there was _that_ problem solved.

Stalker Erik looked around a moment more, fingering his shirt. "No, must have been something I ate," he said at last.

Gradually the Eriks were shuffled into chairs, ranged around the long table. They sat elbow to elbow and looked at each other distrustfully.

Crawford Erik cleared his throat.

"Well?" he said. "I assume this is the doing of the infernal Ms. Battlecry?"

"Ooh! Infernal!" said Hoshi alertly. "She'll like that. We'll have to add it to her titles."

Adison nodded and scrawled "Infernal" on the wall.

"Done and done."

"Are we here for a purpose?" called Gerry Phantom. "And why do I have three girls sitting in my lap?"

Le Chat trotted into the room in cat form, winding around the legs of the Eriks and inspecting their ankles keenly. After a moment, she sniffed and jumped up into Crawford Phantom's lap, peering up at him.

He gazed back down at her, and said, "Good kitty kitty kitty—"

She lifted her chin and allowed him to rub underneath it with his finger, purring throatily. Er— Chat purring throatily, that is, not Crawford Phantom. Though, judging by the expression on his face, it was only a matter of time.

Chat finally jumped off Crawford Phantom's lap and made her way down the table, inspecting wrists as she went. The Eriks stared at her as she went past, still purring.

"Cats," said Kay Erik, murderously.

"Whosa pwetty kitty den?" said Erik Destler, unexpectedly.

Chat carried on until she reached Leroux Erik. She peered at his wrists the longest, and slowly investigated them with her nose, sneezing slightly. Leroux Erik gazed down at her and rubbed the cat snot off with his other hand. Finally she looked up and said, "LEETLE!"

"Aaaaaaaaaugh!" shouted Leroux Erik, at being confronted with a talking cat. Most of the other Eriks were rather surprised as well, and the noise level in the room rose dramatically.

From one side came a voice.

"What's all the hubbub— bub?"

They turned and as with one voice, though tons of throats, which is a bit confusing, but lets just leave it at that, said "_You_!"

Random grinned at them shyly, hitched her towel a little higher towards her shoulders, and said, "Is that not the worst entrance line you've ever _heard_?"


	3. In Which There is Self Inflicted Violenc...

**A/N: Sorry this took so long to get up. I make no excuses, but my reasons are as follows: A. General peevishness. B. Slight mental breakdown. C. A strong desire to hit someone with a club. Anyway, I've gotten past that now— basically— but really its all bloody crap isn't it, which sounds painful, and I AM NOT INSANE (she said as she hit herself over the head with a club). At any rate, the list of Writers is now on my Author's Bio page, and reviews are (somewhat) replied to on my blog (of course if you don't review, I can't reply, neheh). Have a nice day.**

**Chapter Three: In Which There Is Self-Inflicted Violence**

Whispers were going around the room, concentrated mainly in the Eriks, who were flabbergasted, shocked, horrified, alarmed, dismayed, and appalled, which leads us to this undeniable conclusion: seriously repressed Opera Ghosts are easily undone by young women in states of undress.

"Dear god, its her!"

"She's here!"

"And she's wearing a towel!"

"Things are getting worse by the minute!"

Random stopped grinning and scowled abruptly. "I think I resent that."

Kay Erik smacked his hands on the table demandingly and stood up, demanding, "Mademoiselle Battlecry, I demand to know—"

"You sound so demanding," said Random, blinking up at him. "Hold that thought a minute, lemme get dressed." She ducked back into the bathroom, and Kay Erik heaved a sigh and sat back down.

"There's no reasoning with the woman, is there," he said rhetorically.

"You can try," offered Stalker Erik. "I mean— it'd be fun to watch."

This nearly prompted a discussion on what, exactly, 'rhetorical' meant, but Gerry Phantom, his gaze framed on either side by the girls in his lap, looked at the table— or, at least, as much of it as he could see— and said, "I suppose this has something to do with that bargain we made at the end of Whose Lair?"

"Bargain?" said Kay Erik. "We made no bargain. Nothing was signed, no grasp of hands was given. It was a tentative verbal agreement, that is all, and I for one feel no shame in promptly forgetting about it."

"After all," said Celtic Heart philosophically, "a verbal agreement ain't worth the paper its written on, right?"

She smiled at the looks that this earned her, and jiggled the infant she held against her hip.

"—Right," said Kay Erik finally, a bit baffled, and turned back to the matter at hand.

"Still," said Gerry Phantom, "that would explain why she brought us here."

"She looked mad," put in Crawford Erik.

"Oh, no, she always looks like that," said Hoshi.

"No, I mean, she looked angry."

"Oh."

"What of it?" said Kay Erik imperiously. "Is she an Erik? Is she a Phantom of the Opera? I think not, gentlemen. What could she possibly do to us?"

There was a quiet pause as a few hundred pairs of Erik eyes looked down at the table, thoughtfully. Then Crawford Phantom said,

"I remember how she was in Whose Lair, and I for one do not want to be on her bad side."

There was a general murmur of agreement.

Circe Rose leaned over to Mademoiselle Phantom.

"Does Random have a bad side?"

"I don't know," whispered Mademoiselle Phantom back, "but I don't want to find out. Short people are vicious when they get riled up."

"You sound like you speak from personal experience."

Mademoiselle Phantom glanced down at her vertically challenged self. "I _do_."

"Maybe we're going about this all wrong," said Kay Erik. "Perhaps there is some other reason she brought us here."

"Very possibly," said Gerry Phantom, squinting in thought. "There's very little I would put past her teeny, twisted mind."

Kay Erik stared at him for a minute. "_Teeny_?" he said disbelievingly.

Leroux Erik looked up from the staring contest he had been having with Le Chat.

"The random one knows— oh yes, _she_ knows! She _knows_!"

They all looked at him, but after a moment he shrugged slightly and went back to staring at Chat.

"That's all, apparently," said Crawford Phantom, and patted Leroux Erik carefully on the shoulder.

Chat reached out a paw and touched Leroux Erik's mask. Within two seconds they were both purring. Obviously some sort of concordance had been reached— he wouldn't scream if she spoke, and she wouldn't sneeze all over him. Of such little compromises life is made, lived, and done away with. At least, it makes things easier if you compromise. You may be one of those individuals who stick to their guns no matter what and never come out of their tower; in which case, screw you, Rapunzel.

She sneezed on Crawford Phantom instead, and when he looked rather offended, said apologetically, "I'm sorry, its just, the death smell kind of gets to you after a while. And I have a very small nose."

"I see," said Crawford Phantom. From a pocket he produced a voluminous white handkerchief, which he held to Le Chat's nose. She sniffed into it a few times and thanked him.

Kay Erik, who had been watching this exchange in utter disbelief, said, as he watched the Phantom of the Opera help a cat with allergies, "Has the world gone mad?"

"I like to think so," said Random airily, entering the room again. The towel had been replaced with grey-green cords and a black t-shirt, while her hat perched on her wet and snarled hair. She smiled at everyone. "Madness makes things better."

"We have been debating," said Kay Erik icily, "what possible reason you could possibly have for doing the impossible and bringing us here."

She blinked at him. "Is there some sort of word shortage in your part of the world?"

"Answer the question, please."

"Because you seem to say the same word a lot."

"Answer the question."

"I'm the one who asked it, though. _You_ answer it."

"Answer the question that I asked."

"I'm sorry, what was it again?"

"What reason do you have for bringing us here?" said Kay Erik, his voice low and dangerous, his eyelids dropping down to half cover the molten pupils that stared at the young writer as though to sear her very soul.

"I need a reason?" said Random blankly. "What? I need a _reason_? Crap!"

Kay Erik sighed deeply.

"I've never had a _reason_ before! What will I do with it? Will I know it if I see it or will someone more logical than I have to point it out to me?"

Kay Erik sank low in his chair, put his hands on the wooden surface in front of him, and very slowly and deliberately, began to bang his head against the table, every blow carefully aimed straight between his hands. His fingers arched, gripping the table tightly, pulling him forward with every nod so that his forehead hit the table with punishing force.

And now that we've analyzed exactly what he was doing, lets analyze everyone's reaction to this.

The Eriks stared at him as though he were mad— which, really, if you take the time to think about it a little, or even if you don't think about it and just know the legend basically, because it's a fairly well-known fact, really, you don't even have to read the books, all you have to do is listen to the laughter on the Original Cast Recording or take a good look at the Phantom's interior decorating in the movie, with the red velvet and the gilt, and the peacock bed, or whatever the heck that was, that should be enough to convince anyone that he is not entirely sane, never mind all the murders and the apparent fascination with women who can't keep their mouth shut, and never mind the fact that the Eriks have allowed themselves to be represented in Whose Lair and other phics in the most abominable manner, because I'm sure if they were real I'd be punjabbed by now, in fact I think Stalker Erik called in an assassination attempt on me just on general principles, or if you've been living on avocados for the last three weeks, or if you're a Writer at the gates of dawn and you take no prisoners, or even if you skipped over this paragraph because its completely pointless in the end, much like everything I've ever written, with the possible exception of some of my real stuff but this isn't really the time for self-promotion, so just let me say that when the books come out I hope you buy them, and I'll sign them for you, or something, or bake you brownies, but, getting back on subject, allow me to tell you about my seven children, and if you believe that then I've got a tomato farm in Antarctica I'd like to sell you, he was.

I dare you to read that paragraph again.

Some of the Writers laughed, some of them sighed, and Celtic Heart rushed forward and said, "Don't do that, hon! Its bad for you!"

And Stalker Erik nodded significantly and said, "I know how you feel, brother, I know how you feel."

"Jaez," said Random, still pacing worriedly, her hands behind her back. The tails of her black coat trailed along behind her on the ground. "How am I supposed to come up with a reason on short notice? Anyone got one I can borrow?"

"I thought you brought them here because of the deal you made at the end of Whose Lair," offered Mithril-who-shall-be-called-Boomer.

Random gestured briefly with her hand. "Too logical, that doesn't sound like me at all."

"Maybe you just wanted help writing a phic?" suggested One Who Walks With Pigeons.

"Again, a bit too logical for your average Random production."

"Its _Erik_," said Adison with a shrug. "There's a whole bunch of Eriks in your office. Who needs a reason?"

Random glanced up at her and pointed a small but definite finger. "That one I like."

She kept pacing however, and that's when disaster struck, in the form of her tripping over her coattails, falling hard, and striking her head against the wall.

There was a brief period of silence.

There was a brief period of noise.

There was a brief period of silence.

"I'm alright," said Random, staggering up from her position on the floor. "I— I think—"

She lost her balance and tripped again, this time hitting her head against the table leg. There was less of an uproar this time, and some stifled giggles; evidently it couldn't have hurt too much the first time if all she did was go and do it again. Kay Erik looked down at her and sniffed.

"Clumsy, aren't you?"

She looked up and him and said, "Oh, screw you."

Oddly enough, his eyes looked genuinely hurt, but she was too busy staggering up, then tripping, then falling down again to notice.

This time she banged her head into Stalker Erik's knee on the way down. He yelped and clutched at it. Random lay with her head on his foot and was terribly, terribly still.

Stalker Erik nudged her with his toe.

She didn't move.

"Dear god," said Celtic Heart.

"Oh no!" said Mandy, putting her hands to her face.

"Check her pockets for loose change," said Stalker Erik.

But it was at this point that Random finally stirred. She shifted onto her back and looked hazily up at the ceiling.

"My— brain hurts," she said.

"Oh yes?" said Stalker Erik, tilting his head to look down at her. "No harm done then."

"Brain?" said SarahBelle in the tone of one who's never heard the word before.

Willing hands were offered to help her up, but when she answered the question, "Am I in your will?" with a resounding, "No," she was left to fend for herself. She groped her way up the table leg quite a ways before opening her eyes to discover that it was, in fact, Kay Erik's leg, and he was glaring at her.

Then she groped the rest of the way up, just because.

Finally she was standing somewhat shakily on her own two feet, and looked around at everyone.

"I've been struck on the head," she said, "three times."

They all, nearly imperceptibly, nodded.

"I wasn't all that normal to begin with."

They, more perceptibly this time, nodded.

"Life sucks," said Random, "buy a vacuum."

They all nodded, very definitely, and she held up a finger and grinned to herself.

"I think," she said, "that this will be a very interesting episode indeed. Hand out the party hats and lets tango with wolves— cha-cha with caterpillars— lambada with llamas—"

As she slowly sank to the floor again listing alliteratives, Kay Erik looked down at her, then up at the Writers, who were watching with amusement. People bashing their heads into things was one of their favourite forms of entertainment; fortunately, it happened quite a lot when Random was around.

"Has she gone mad?"

Stalker Erik's voice was a bit faint.

"What," he said, then had to clear his throat and start again. "What a stupid question."


	4. Wrestling Match

**A/N: See? A faster update! Once again, reviews are replied to on my blog, the address of which can be found on my author's bio page. **

**Chapter Four: Wrestling Match**

"Wonderful," said SarahBelle, throwing her hands up in the air. "Four chapters into the story and the person responsible for this whole mess has completely lost her mind."

"She had one to start with?" inquired Kay Erik with a thin facade of politeness. "I ask merely for information."

"Oh shush," said Hoshi aggravatedly. She pushed her stricken boss into a chair, and waved a flashlight in her eyes. Random shut her eyes against the light, curled up in a ball, and started muttering to herself about horticulture. "You alright, Ran?"

"God in heaven, not the corset!"

A slight pause.

"Okay," said Hoshi tentatively. "This could be normal. Can we have a little more information on that, boss?"

"Normal?" repeated Kay Erik. "What about_ that_ is normal?"

Hoshi blinked at him. "Its Random," she said.

He raised an eyebrow— not that you could see this, on account of the mask he wore, but there was a definite eyebrow-raising implied in his voice when he spoke.

"I repeat the question," he said, "as it hasn't been answered. What about that is normal?"

Hoshi sighed. "Someone explain it to him?"

"I will," said Adison, jumping in like a good PR Agent should. "You see, Kay Erik, there comes a time in every woman's life when they just— wait." She glanced at Hoshi. "Is this the right explanation?"

Hoshi shrugged, and MindGame held up a finger, telling them to wait, while she pulled a large book out of her bag. "Explanations for Random Actions," she said, and opened it, flipping slowly through the pages. "Which one are we looking for again?"

"Well, I think I was explaining the biological clock. Give 'Randomness' a try."

"Hang on a sec."

"No matter," said Kay Erik quickly, for it looked to be a long wait. "I shall just assume the worst, shall I? I've never been disappointed yet when doing that."

"The gist of it is," said Adison, "that life is too short to be sane. So. She became Random instead. She wasn't always like this, you know— at least, that's what she tells us."

"I see," he said.

Random opened her eyes to peer at a seemingly incidental Writer— Color Me Gray, it turned out to be, one of the newer minions. "You," she said.

Color Me Gray peered back at her.

"Me?"

"You," said Random, and went back to sleep.

This inspired Color Me Gray to no end; she went off and became the next Mother Theresa, except in a slightly different way. For one thing, she was taller, and for another, her name wasn't Theresa, and for a final difference, she was horribly mean to people. However, that is another story and shall be told another time. Or possibly not.

"Not good," said Hoshi, now looking worried. "Not good at all."

"Will she recover?" asked letthedreamdescend worriedly.

"Who knows?"

"So we're stuck in the middle of a phic with no idea where its supposed to go?" said Chanson d'Obscurite, trying hard to understand.

"And this is a new situation how, exactly?" scoffed Ridel.

"But this time there's no writer!" pointed out Marianne Brandon.

Everyone took in a deep breath.

"Everybody _panic_!" shouted Jennyfair. Most of the Writers duly complied, and the chaos that ensued would have pleased Random immensely, had her brain not taken an abrupt vacation. Most of the Eriks watched the proceedings with disgusted appreciation, if such a thing is possible— it cannot be truly said that any of them were surprised. Keeping in mind what a mess Whose Lair had been, this subsequent screw-up wasn't exactly a shock. However, it was entertainment, and the alternative being, at the moment, another cold and lonely evening spent flicking cards into their fedoras in their respective lairs, they were marginally content to sit and watch, especially when the panicking Writers started running into each other.

"I'll handle this!" said Stalker Erik, Celtic Heart, and Mandy the O, simultaneously, and reached for Random's notebook, which she'd dropped on the ground on the occasion of her first episode of head-banging. Of course, they all had terrific timing, and as they lunged together (it looked rather acrobatic, and had they done it on skates in time with a Celine Dion song, it would have garnered a round of applause) their heads collided with a sound like "BOINK."

(The exact sound was, of course, much debated for weeks afterwards. The Writers and Artists separated into camps, half insisting it was "BOINK," the other half holding out for "CONK" and a very small faction, led by Lizzie Black, who presumably had experience with these things, contended that it was, in fact, "BoNk." Let the record show that it was eventually decided to be officially "BOINK" and then the matter was promptly forgotten about, since it was of no importance whatsoever— forgotten, that is, by all except Lizzie Black, who went on to write a long and fantastically boring book about the subject.)

Most of the Writers, despite the lack of an accompanying music, decided to applaud anyway.

Hoshi stepped over three prone bodies and snagged the notebook. Straightening back up, she opened it in the middle and began to search for some idea as to what Random had planned for the phic.

"Tomatoes sound familiar to any of you?"

"I don't know," said Crawford Phantom, slightly confused. "What does a tomato sound like?"

"How about squirrels?"

"Squirrels!" shouted Killthefop, and got strange looks from everyone else, because everyone else was wishing that they had thought to shout "Squirrels!" first.

Hoshi frowned and flipped through a few more pages. Stopping on one, she started to laugh hysterically.

"What?" asked Gondolier alertly.

"Nothing."

"If its nothing," Boat went on keenly, "then why are you laughing like that?"

"Nothing, nothing, its nothing—" She caught Stalker Erik's glance, pointed at him, and slowly doubled over, chortling.

"Stop chortling," said Stalker Erik irritatedly. "Is it about me?"

"God, no, why would you think that?" she said, sobering a little.

Stalker Erik huffed and rubbed his head, helping Celtic Heart and Mandy up off the floor. "Have you got some sort of outline yet?"

"I don't think Boss deals in outlines," said Hoshi, sobering gradually, flipping through a few more pages. "All I can gather so far is that we were supposed to bring all the Eriks in—"

"Done that," pointed out TennisFanatic21.

"And— some crude sketches here— er, crude in the 'badly drawn' manner, not crude as in 'crude'— was there, at some point, a major fist fight between MPS and Kay Erik?"

MPS stood in the corner and did her best to look angelic. Hoshi shot her a narrow-eyed glance.

"Not that I am aware of," said Kay Erik.

"No? There's a definite reference to sucker punching here."

"Perhaps that was meant to come later," he suggested.

"Yeah, that could be. Alright— here's something."

The Writers sat up alertly; the Artists faction, led by Jennyfair, continued painting a mural on the wall.

"Um— Ad and Tori?"

Adison and VictoriaTai stood up, shoulders squared.

"Reporting for duty and determined to do what we have to and do it well," said Adison, with a salute.

"Provided, of course," said Tori, "that it doesn't involve any actual work."

"Right. Or anything gross."

"Or anything we don't feel like doing."

"And as long as we get paid for it."

"And she has a good dental plan."

Hoshi blinked at them. "Are you finished?"

They exchanged glances.

"Is there a possibility that we could get paid in Patrick Raoul?"

Hoshi snickered. "You want to be paid in fops?"

"Fops!" said Gerry Phantom. "New currency, are they— what is the world coming to?" He shook his head. Most of the Writers in the room couldn't help but notice the looks of outrage on the Erik's faces, and several began to back away slowly.

"Its not just that he's a fop," Adison attempted to explain. "Its that he's—"

"Shmexy," said Tori quietly.

"Yes, that."

Hoshi coughed violently, and Becky shook her head. "Probably not a good thing to say to a busload of Eriks, hons," she said kindly.

The Eriks took in deep breaths, and all took one step towards Tori and the unfortunate PR Agent, who began to look slightly unnerved. Then Leroux Erik held up a hand.

"What," he said, "is this shmexy?"

"'Ponytailed,'" said Adison quickly. "It means 'extremely ponytailed.'"

"Ah."

"So then," said Gerry Phantom, looking slightly puzzled, "why did that girl shout 'Shmexy' at me when I came in?" He indicated Grace. "I mean— I do not have a ponytail. I've never had a ponytail. I've never even thought about having a ponytail. My hair is highly trained never to grow past my collar."

Everyone glanced at Grace, who had the decency to look embarrassed.

"It was a mistake," she said. "I'm terribly terribly sorry."

"I see," said Gerry Phantom, though clearly he didn't.

The Eriks returned to their seats, Ad and Tori relaxed visibly, and Stalker Erik snorted and said, "No it doesn't mean that anyway, it means—"

Adison tackled him.

"Anyway, you were saying?" asked Tori of Hoshi.

"Right," said the Chief Minion, frowning at the notebook and ignoring the sounds of the minor wrestling match that was going on behind the table. "One of the ideas she kind of mentioned here was you and Adi going to find Patrick Raoul and bring him back here."

Adison had been getting the worst of the fight; however, these words rejuvenated her efforts, and in a very few seconds she had shoved Stalker Erik underneath the table, tied his wrists together with his own overshirt, stuffed a sock in his mouth, stolen his wallet, and scrambled up, panting slightly, eyes shining.

"I think I've always known," she said, rapturously, "that there's a God up there, and he _likes_ me."


	5. The Hunting of the Fop

**A/N: T'heck with the not-replying-via-chapters, for now.**

**SarahBelle:** It could be that type of seamstress— or it could not be. Up to you. If it is, please take the men to your apartment instead of bringing them back to the Admin Office. Thanks.

**Circe Rose**: I have not forgotten Terik! He is yours and he shall appear.

**ElfLover**: Here! I rewrote the first chapter specially for you.

**Adison**: RAA!

**SimplyElymas:** Okay, that was great. I loved that. Thank you.

**Phoenix Angel 13:** I know its been pretty phan-intensive right now, but hopefully I can get my mind twisted the right way and figure out what the heck I'm doing with everything— at that point, more Eriks will make themselves known. If I can get them to obey me. (whip crack)

**Color Me Gray:** I knew there was a reason you'd make a good minion. Thank you for the longest, most rambling review I've ever in my life gotten.

**OieCuite**: Absolutely! You're in.

**Ridel:** We could try, except I think the Eriks tend to go commando. (innocent blink, then a wicked smile)

**Hoshi:** (takes her by the shoulders and shakes her) For Pete's sake, Loyal Minion, pay attention! And thank you for frothing, yes, I love froth. Especially in the bathtub, with bubbles, but please don't feel obligated to froth in my bathtub because that would just be wrong, as, indeed, this entire reply is. (is laughing so hard she can't make any sense at all, as if this is a departure from how she normally is) And I love froth on pie. Er. Different kind of froth, of course. I assume. If not, Marie Calender's must be employing some crazy rabid people in the backroom. Which should not be ruled out as a possibility. I believe they are equal-opportunity employers, after all.

**A/N: The rest of you, thank you so much for reviewing, and for those of you who comment in the chat at PPN, I love that as well. Its all very encouraging**.

**Chapter Five: The Hunting of the Fop**

Preparations went on apace, mostly consisting of Adison and VictoriaTai primping in front of the solitary mirror in the bathroom. In the main room, the Eriks were being fed tea. Many were the instances of the tea being spilled on the Erik-laps by the dazzled hands of their phans. ElfLover in particular was having some trouble. She had been serving Leroux Erik when she got all excited by the odor of death and clasped her hands around his neck, entirely disregarding the fact that she had an entire teapot in her hands. This had resulted in some tense moments as the tea spattered over several of the Eriks in the vicinity, and it could not be said that any of them appreciated it; however, the situation was somewhat taken care of when it was decided that the solution to this was to take the tea-spattered Eriks outside and hose them off. The Leroux, Crawford, and Brad Little versions were hauled off protesting ardently, and after some time there were roars of rage from the men and squeals of delight from the phans, and so everything was sweetness and light.

Celtic Heart and Mandy had, eventually, managed to contain their laughter at the rumpled and peeved-looking Stalker Erik, long enough to set him free of his own shirt. He had flung the overshirt away from him and now stood, flustered, in a t-shirt that said, "Shagging Is Not A Spectator Sport" and then in smaller letters, "But It Should Be." He didn't seem to mind the loss of his wallet, being more concerned with the fact that he'd been subdued by a female.

"Why should that bother you?" said Mandy, blinking at him pleasantly. "It happens all the time."

"Wrong sort of subduing. Where is she?" said Stalker Erik, smoothing a hand over his head in a doomed attempt to get his hair to cooperate and behave itself.

"Primping," said Celtic Heart helpfully. "She's going in search of the fop, you know."

Stalker Erik went dead still, his body radiating tense alertness, or, possibly, alert tenseness. Or, possibly again, he was simply being quiet, in a relaxed manner, though this is less likely.

"The fop?" he repeated.

Five minutes later, after a slight detour, he was lounging against the doorframe of the bathroom trying hard to be nonchalant.

Ten minutes after that, he was standing straight up and slightly flustered.

"Take me with you."

"For the last time, Erik, _no_ you can't go with us!"

"Take me with you. Please."

"_No_!" Adison finally rounded on Stalker Erik, glaring at him. "We want to _catch_ Patrick Raoul, not kill him."

"If you want to catch him, take me with you. I'm the foremost expert on fop hunting." Stalker Erik hefted his version of the Punjab lasso over his shoulder. It was a Winchester, it was double barreled, and if he squeezed the trigger the first thing that would not come out was a little flag that said "Bang."

Adison transferred her glare to the rifle. "What are you doing with that thing anyhow?"

"Yeah," said Tori, "I thought you were a man of peace."

"This? Its— er— ah— meh— um— eh— uh— it's a water gun," he lied, not very convincingly. Adison put her hands on her hips.

"Prove it then."

"Alright," said Stalker Erik, put the gun across his arm, winced anticipatorily, and pulled the trigger. There was a sound exactly like a rifle shot and he blinked down at the gun. "How'd that get in there?"

Across the room, MPS said, "Ow," and slumped to the floor.

"It got in there," said Adison, pseudo-patiently and putting her hands on her hips, "because it's a rifle, and what does one do with rifles? One puts bullets in them."

"Shells," corrected Stalker Erik absentmindedly.

There was a bit of a ruckus going on, on the other side of the room.

"Bullets," said Adison, just because.

"Shells."

"Bullets."

"Shells."

More ruckus, some pandemonium, and some hurriedly-arranged last rites, just in case.

"Bullets."

"Shells."

A few of the more opportunistic Writers started going through her backpack, where they discovered twenty three romance novels and a notebook that had "Mrs. Stalker" written in it, over and over, on every page.

"Bullets."

"Shells."

Some of the more-helpful-but-dreadfully-inept Writers tried to force carrot cake between MPS's lips, but this effort was doomed from the beginning and as she coughed spastically, cream cheese frosting flew everywhere, covering the more-helpful-but-dreadfully-inept-and-now-irritated Writers, and retexturing a small part of the nearby wall.

"Bullets."

"Shells."

"Pasta," said VictoriaTai, dreamily.

"Patrick!" said Adison.

"Yes!"

"Yes!"

"Take me with you," said Stalker Erik.

They left him behind, and went to catch the fop.

It didn't, in the end, turn out to be as difficult as they had anticipated. They found him holding court in a Starbucks on Ventura Boulevard. He sat in one of the little metal chairs, his back straight, regaling some well-dressed fellow patrons with stories of his daring escapades as a Vicomte— all of which he appeared to be making up entirely.

"And there was a dragon— yes, a dragon! A hideous dragon! With great big teeth! And I cut off its head with my fingernails!" He nodded emphatically, ponytail bobbing, and his audience laughed politely; they didn't seem to quite know what to make of him.

"Patrick Raoul, honey," said Adison, putting a hand on his shoulder, "we've come to take you away.

Patrick Raoul looked up at her with trusting eyes.

"Hey!" said the patrons, irritably. "That's not fair! You can't take him away just because he's insane. All he's doing is telling some stories, is that a crime?"

Tori blinked at them.

"Odd, how they all spoke at the same time like that."

"Creepy," agreed Adison, nervously.

The patrons stood, and began to move forward.

"We'll defend him! The poor man shouldn't have to go to an insane asylum just because he's telling stories!"

"Actually, we're the hair police," tried Ad. "The ponytail is in strict violation of this city's good taste code."

But the patrons were having none of it. Clearly, looking at strangers on the sidewalk, there was no such thing as a good taste code, else eighty percent of the population would have been in jail until they agreed to shave their heads and just start over again. The fascinating thing about people in that city is when they get determined about something, very few people escape alive.

Ad, Tori, and Patrick Raoul barely made it themselves.

"We should have brought the stalker after all," said Adison, panting. Her face was smudged and dirty.

"Or at least his gun," said Tori. Her hair was a tangled mess.

"But at least we got what we came for."

They looked over at Patrick Raoul. At some point his shirt had gotten torn from his body, either by the rampaging mob or, more likely, VictoriaTai, and he blinked at them innocently and gave them a slight smile.

"You look a bit familiar," he said. "Do I know you two ladies?"

Tori whispered, "Should we mention that we're from the phic where he got beaten up, de-ponytailed, and finally killed?"

"Oh, come on," said Adison, tiredly. "Lets just go back to the Admin office." They each took a hand and led him away.

Meanwhile, back at the ranch—

Or, if not ranch, Administration Office—

Where Random had just picked up three lackeys in addition to her minions, because now that she was completely crazy, everyone wanted to be on her good side—

In fact no one quite wanted to find out if she had anything other than a good side, because she was reputed to be quite cruel when the occasion warranted it—

Or didn't warrant it—

Or if she was in the wrong mood—

Anyway, Mistressphantomshadow was not quite dead.

There were a group of people standing over her. The ambulance had been called, but due to rush hour traffic, probably wouldn't show for another three years. Becky tried to take Stalker Erik to task for shooting her, but he was laughing too hard, bent double, hands on his knees, face turning red, to pay her any attention.

"Honestly, Erik—"

"I didn't do it on purpose! It was a kind of Freudian slip, except with a gun. A gunnian slip, if you will."

The Eriks sat at the table and watched the goings on with irritation evident in their eyes. A few of them were more irritated than others; these were the ones that had been taken out, stripped, and scrubbed— all this for the sake of a little bit of tea, but really, phangirls need no excuse when it comes to removing clothing. Subsequently, kimonos had been doled out to all who needed them, and, also subsequently, drool buckets had been doled out amongst the more rabid phangirls. The floor had already been mopped three times, and Random's muse/janitor, Alberta Eric, was starting to complain.

At any rate, the Eriks were irritated in the extreme. And if Erik ain't happy, ain't nobody happy. Mostly because, when Eriks are unhappy, they tend to kill people. And death, strange as it may seem, is not the most joyful experience one can undergo.

They were getting ideas, and fingering punjabs, and dreaming dark daydreams of death and destruction. They weren't exactly happy with the whole situation; not only had they been kidnapped into the Admin Office, but now that they were here they were being _ignored_, overlooked for the sake of a theatrically-gifted phangirl.

MPS sat up halfway and moaned, then flopped back down and writhed, reaching both hands up towards Stalker Erik, who took a step back, and slurring his name. Obviously she would have been quite happy to have blood coming out of her mouth, in order to make it more dramatic; as it was she had to be satisfied with spit bubbles. She frothed at the mouth in a slightly pathetic manner, trying to draw out her death as long as possible.

Kay Erik stood up and banged his fist on the table as he was wont to do, startling Random awake. She was curled on the table now, her hat tipped at a rakish angle over her face, and blinked sleepily up at him.

He glared back down at her.

"This is ridiculous!" he said. "You brought us here and now you cannot even control your Writers! They're not even paying us any attention, and yet they will not let us go! They have guards at the doorway!" Indeed, Regina, Twisted, and Killthefop, as the new lackeys, were guarding the doorway, and guarding it quite well. There was no way an Erik was going to get past them— unless, of course, he asked them nicely and was the right one. "And look at the Artists! They're—" He paused, one arm spread out in a theatrical gesture, and stared at the Artists faction, which were setting up ladders and laughing amongst themselves. "They're— painting the ceiling?"

Random blinked at him again, and for a moment almost looked as though her mind had returned. He looked down at her and crouched over her slightly, waiting for an intelligent response.

She beckoned him closer with a crooked finger.

He bent down lower.

She called him on.

He bent down lower.

She pushed herself up on one elbow, raised her lips to his ear, and said, "What were large hailstones the size of before golf balls were invented?"

Before he could stop himself, he yanked hard on her hair. It was a perfectly natural reaction, and one she was perfectly used to. She responded by butting her head into his shoulder, and within seconds the fight was joined.

Hoshi sat up from reading one of MPS's romance novels.

"Sucker punching!" she said. "I knew it had to happen sometime!"

Of course, it happened just as she was getting to the part where Count Armante Fortescue was chasing Valesca Rosein de la Saytra around the table on a slippery linoleum floor and they were both wearing socks— so Hoshi ignored the fight, lay back down, and read on. It was only a matter of time before one or both of them slipped and fell—

Random didn't so much lose as simply decide to roll away from Kay Erik's pummeling fists and snapping jaws. She rolled straight off the other edge of the table, landing in Gerry Phantom's lap, and clinging to him for all she was worth. Gerry Phantom picked her off his lap and set her on the ground. She stood, a bit shakily, and leaned heavily on the table.

"Oh God," she cried in horror, "what if the hokey pokey really_ is _what it's all about?"

"Here," said Mandy, comfortingly, "have a lemon."

Random took it, stared at it, and said, "Apple!"

There was a slight pause. Stalker Erik looked up. "Snapple," he said.

"Grapple," said Random.

"Dapple."

"Rapple."

"Tapple."

"Crapple."

"Sapple."

"Mapple."

"Napple."

Twisted lunged at Stalker Erik and clapped a hand over his mouth. "Stop," she hissed between her teeth. "Stop. Just stop— right— now."

He squinted at her and made indeterminate noises from behind her hand. "Look, SE, I know this is odd, but you're the sane one in this situation, okay? No rhyming. I mean it."

"Anybody want a peanut?" Random asked hazily. Stalker Erik snorted wildly and Twisted removed her hand, looked at it in disgust, then wiped it on Elektra, who appeared not to notice.

"Fezzik, are there rocks ahead?"

"If there are, we'll all be dead," chanted Stalker Erik.

There was never a better time for WeakWilledChristine Erik (whom, if you remember, bore more than a passing resemblance to Cary Elwes) to appear, and so, with uncanny instinct, he failed completely to show up.

This total mindlessness was getting even to Leroux Erik, who stood up and backed away from Random, saying, "Begone! Begone, foul spirit!"

She blinked at him and swayed dizzily. "What, you mean like, ghost chickens?"

MPS half-sat again and clawed at Stalker Erik's pantleg. The only thing to do when someone claws your pantleg is to back away hurriedly, which he did, and when one backs away hurriedly, as he did, one does not watch where one is going, and as he backed away, he bumped into Leroux Erik, who shoved him, and then rebounded off Kay Erik, who wasn't paying him any attention but was still growling at Random, and so the two of them crashed to the floor, Stalker Erik on top and Kay Erik still growling, and in the midst of the ensuing laughter, hoots, and chaos, there was the voice of Becky shouting, "Not again!" and Regina shouting, "I knew it!" and Twisted repeating the phrase, "Male-hussy," several times over.

Kay Erik, much to everyone's surprise, didn't attempt to kill the stalker; instead, he merely regarded him coldly and shoved him off with his foot, standing up and brushing himself off. Stalker Erik sat on the floor, leaning back on both hands with his legs stretched out in front of him, and laughed himself sick.

Kay Erik said, "This nonsense must stop, and it must stop now."

There was some confusion as to which nonsense he was referring to— the Artists had just dumped a bunch of paint over both Chaney Erik and Rains Erik, and the Old Movie Phantoms were starting a league in order to protest— the Writers were falling over themselves laughing and interrogating Stalker Erik on what he thought of the whole thing— Random was trying to talk philosophy with Leroux Erik— and VictoriaTai and Adison had just got back, Patrick Raoul in tow, leading to some glomping of the fop.

However, things were much clearer when Kay Erik strode to MPS, bent and picked her up in both arms, and carried her into the bathroom. Placing her firmly and none too gently in the tub, he withdrew, closing the door behind him. With a carefully aimed blow of his foot, he broke the doorknob. There was no going in. There was no going out.

He dusted off his hands and turned the baleful stare on everyone in the room.

Whatever else Eriks dislike, the one thing they truly, truly hate, is to be ignored.


	6. The HalfHearted and Surely Doomed Searc

**MademoisellePhantom: I have a feeling that the second review you left for chapter five had more to it— and my curiousity is killing me.**

**A/N: Thanks for the reviews and I'm glad you all seem to like the story so far. Hopefully I can sustain it— things are getting a little hectic in my life at the moment. Hectic in a good way, though, so its okay. Anyway. There are fourteen in-jokes and references in here, from PPN, PFN, and my former existence as Queen of Crappy Van Helsing fics. If you get them all, you get— something. I'm not sure what yet. But definitely something.**

Chapter Six: The Half-Hearted and Surely Doomed Search For Random's Sanity

Patrick Raoul, adequately glomped, had suddenly taken note of the fact that he was in a room dominated by versions of the Phantom of the Opera, and leapt for safety. It was difficult to find; the Administration Office was not cluttered, apart from all the bodies, and boasted only the long table, the bookshelves, and innumerable amounts of chairs for furniture. In the end, he was forced to take cover underneath Adison and VictoriaTai, who willingly shielded him with their bodies.

A bit too willingly, really.

Surprisingly, however, the Eriks were totally ignoring the presence of the ponytailed Vicomte. They were, instead, attempting to set down some rules, regarding physical interaction with the Writers.

No, not that sort of physical interaction. A more painful sort.

No, not that sort either.

"It is not fair that we should be brought here and then passed over," said Crawford Phantom, "I completely agree with that. But is it really necessary to lock that unfortunate Writer in the lavatory?"

"Yes," hissed Kay Erik. "It is."

"I think we should at least_ try_ to see things from their side—"

He rambled on in this vein for several minutes before realizing that he was being stared at in a most remarkable manner. His words trailed off and he blinked at the rest of the Eriks.

"What are you looking at me like I'm a mindless drone who has no idea what he's talking about and is too polite for his own good, not to mention extremely British and probably feeds the fish in the lake every day, and I don't mean with dead bodies or something but actually with little pinches of fish food like a normal person would, and they're not pirana or anything like that, not even koi, but teensy goldfish?"

"Because," said Gerry Phantom heavily, "you_ are_ a mindless drone who has no idea—"

"See things from their side?" repeated Kay Erik, raising his eyebrows skeptically.

"—what he's talking about and is too polite for his own good, not to mention—"

"I try to see the good in all men," said Crawford Phantom primly.

"—extremely British and probably feeds the fish in the—"

"_Do_ you," said Kay Erik. "_Do_ you, now."

"—lake every day, and I don't mean with dead bodies or anything but with—"

"What is that intended to mean?"

"Getting a bit compassionate, are we? Getting sympathetic? Getting— _four-dimensional_?"

"—but actually with little pinches of fish food like a normal person would—"

"And what is the problem with that, pray tell?" inquired Crawford Phantom.

Kay Erik, not for the first time, pounded a fist on the table, half-standing and leaning into Crawford Phantom's face. "_I_ do the four-dimensionalism around here, you dolt! _I'm_ the one with the most well-developed character! _I'm_ the Erik with the _brain_, at least the one who's brain isn't on display at the Smithstonian, for God's sake, and do you think your flashy well-heeled capeitude would go over so well if I hadn't beaten the path with my cynical sarcasm and my devastating remarks and that whole subplot with my mother and then fathering a child on my deathbed? _That's_ a miracle for you. Do you _really_ think you're more _popular_ than I am? Me, Kay Erik? _Me_, the four-dimensional Phantom of the Opera?"

They stared, nose to nose, or rather, nose to not-nose, at each other for a few tense moments.

"— and they're not pirana or anything like that, not even koi, but teensy goldfish," finished Gerry Phantom rapidly.

Kay Erik sank back down into his chair.

"I understand where you're coming from," he said miserably. "Surely every man must wish to have a well-developed character. It is only natural to want such a thing. Are you to be denied it simply because Andrew Lloyd Webber likes to put cape twirls and repetitious songs in everywhere he can't think of something intelligent to say? Surely not. I share my four-dimensionalism with you, my son— I bequeath it to everyone. Let us all have sympathy for the Writers— God knows they need all the help they can get."

"Thank you," said Willow Rose sincerely as she walked past him.

Kay Erik stuck out a foot and tripped her.

She fell to the ground and, rather unfortunately, shattered into three pieces.

There was a shocked silence, though I'm not sure why because, really, this sort of thing happens all the time.

The three pieces of Willow Rose picked themselves up, brushed themselves off, and named themselves Kat, Kate, and Kathryn. The Eriks looked totally horrified— the Writers simply glanced at each other.

"Does this mean what I think it means?" asked Lady Lomode.

"Maybe—" said TennisFanatic21 doubtfully.

"Depends," countered Boomer. "What do you think it means?"

"I think it means that requests are really starting to be answered."

Circe Rose glanced around her. "I dunno— Terik hasn't showed up yet."

Gerry Phantom looked up at them and quirked an eyebrow immediately. "That sounds promising—"

"Terik?" repeated Kay Erik, in that terribly dry sarcastic repeating tone that only he can do really well.

"Terik," said Circe Rose, shrugging slightly.

"Terik?" said Phoenix Angel 13, brow furrowing. "What the—"

"Terry Erik," said Circe Rose, in the tones of one who has said this far too many times. "Terry from Tomb Raider II. Erik from— oh, just guess."

There were some murmurs and some sighs. Random sat up straight, glanced around alertly, said, "My God, the Russians are attacking!" then put her head on Stalker Erik's lap and went back to sleep.

Circe Rose shrugged. "Terik. His hair is really short. He wears a mask on occasion. He shoots people and betrays Christine for Pandora's box."

She was getting some strange looks until she added, "Oh, and he can do upside down push-ups," and then she got some very, very attentive looks indeed.

"Tell us more."

"Well—"

"Question," said Random, sitting up again and putting a declamatory finger in the air. "Eriks have chest hair, yes, no?"

Another shocked silence, but this was the good kind. Along the table there was a mad rush to fold arms across chests, and amongst the Writers there were some speculative glances.

"Its just I have this sudden inexplicable vision of Erik walking down the street shirtless, followed by a squirrel."

"We could find out for you," offered Melissa Brandybuck .

"Oh, yeah, find out no problem," said RoseWithABlackRibbon, with a great but nonetheless unconvincing show of nonchalance.

"Never mind," said Random, wrinkled her nose, turned the other way and put her feet in Stalker Erik's lap instead. Then she sat up again. "Humans are really weird, you know?"

"Ye-es..." said OieCuite nervously.

"I mean, take cows for example."

"—cows?"

"Yes. What kind of person wakes up one day, looks at a cow, and says, by golly, I'm going to drink whatever I can squeeze out of those things?"

A general silence greeted this, and some stifled snickers. Random shook her head at the depravity of the human race, shifted, put her head on Stalker Erik's knee and closed her eyes again.

Hoshi walked over to her and bent down, peering at her worriedly. "Boss, is your brain coming back yet?"

"Hey!" said Random.

"Whoa. Um. What?"

"Where's my notebook?"

Hoshi looked at her nervously. "You're turning normal again, aren't you. Dang it. I mean— yay."

Random sat up very, very slowly and looked around her, turning a stern glare on everyone in turn.

"I give you all," she said distinctly, "lemons of love, and cable cars, and warring bakery items, and what do you give me in return? Chippendale Erik! Did I ask for a stripping Erik? Well, did I? Because if I didn't— because if I didn't— because if I didn't, what is wrong with me?"

"Slowly but surely," said Hoshi softly, and regarded the notebook with sad eyes. "I had the power for such a short time— and squandered it on reading that romance novel!"

Random got shakily to her feet and said, "Whose Erik this is, I think I know/ She's sobbing in the corner, though/ She will not see me linger tonight/ to clutch him close and hold him tight/ perhaps if I give him a tip/ I can convince Erik to strip—"

Patrick Raoul, who had been making noises indicating he wished to be gotten off of before he passed out from lack of air, finally succeeded in escaping the dedicated clutches of Tori and Adison. Rising to his feet slowly, the first thing that met his eyes was Random, corrupting Frost; not a good sight at any time of the day, and especially not then, when he'd just nearly been smothered by his fangirls. He blinked at her.

"What is _wrong_ with her?" he said, but the writer's case was immediately taken up by her lackeys and minions.

"What do you mean what's wrong with her!" said SarahBelle.

"What's usually wrong with her!" said Regina.

"Random's prill!" put in Chat.

"Random's a genius!" said Killthefop, bugging her eyes out dramatically to make her point.

"A can't-tell-her-bum-from-a-teakettle genius, but a genius nonetheless," amended Twisted realistically.

"Well," said Patrick Raoul, fingering his ponytail. "Clearly, mademoiselles, genius has turned to madness."

There was an intake of breath, and then several of the writers threw their fists in the air and shouted as if with one voice, in fact it sounded amazingly like one voice, if one voice sounds like several voices all shouting in unison, which I don't suppose it does, "Kill the fop!"

Random detached Stalker Erik from the marauding horde and pushed him into a chair so she could reach his forehead.

"What is this/ this thing that is/ a forehead kiss/ a pathway to bliss/ a boo and a hiss/ or just a near miss?"

Stalker Erik leaned back in the chair. "Let the woman be mad. I can take it."

There was chaos, and it was a lovely thing. The Eriks themselves got rather excited and went after Patrick Raoul with an astounding variety of weapons. It was a bit like a fox hunt, actually. In the end, Patrick Raoul escaped only by taking refuge on the bookshelves, where he was glared at by Regina Scorpio and Mongie.

"Did we ask you up here?"

"No," said Patrick Raoul.

"Did Random ask you up here?"

"No," said Patrick Raoul.

"Will you pay us for the privilege of being up here?"

"Yes," said Patrick Raoul.

"Welcome," said Reg and Mongie, and all was smiles.

The Eriks were trying to figure out how to detach the bookshelves from its moorings and bring it down when Hoshi stepped onto the table and shouted at the top of her voice—

"Everybody _stop_!"

She was uncompromisingly ignored by everyone there. The Eriks were busy hunting the fop; the Writers were busy cheering them on; Random was busy having an altercation with Le Chat. Post-forehead kiss, she had perched on Stalker Erik's knee to observe the goings on from said vantage point, and Chat, feeling that this was an encroachment on her territory, bit her on the ankle. They were now yelling body parts in capital letters, while Stalker Erik got bored with the whole thing and went to make some tea.

"LAP!"

"KNEE!"

"LAP!"

"KNEE!"

"LAP!"

"ANKLE!"

"ANKLE!"

"WRIST!"

"WRIST!"

"WHAT?"

"WRIST AND ANKLE!"

"KNEE!"

"LAP!"

"FOREHEAD!"

"GAH!"

Hoshi, with the quick thinking that characterized her Chief Minion status, though I'm not quite sure what that phrase meant just now, but lets ignore that for the moment, set a bomb off on the table.

It caused a rumpus.

Actually, it caused an explosion, but this really isn't the time to split hairs.

The rumpus caused a ruckus, the ruckus caused a tumult, the tumult caused a din, the din caused a lunch, the lunch caused a breakfast, at length there was afternoon tea and so everyone became calm again. This is logic at work for you.

"Hey," said Hoshi quietly. The bomb had made a large crater in the floor, where once there had been a table, and her hair stood on end, her face smudged with soot.

"Yes?" said everyone, very very politely.

"We need to find Random's brain," she said, "so that we can get this show on the road. I mean, look, chapter six already and nothing of note has happened at all. And when I say nothing of note, I mean nothing of note apart from all the versions of Erik that ever were being herded into the Admin Office, and Boss losing her mind, and the hunting of the fop, and numerous occasions for tea, and the fact that Mandy just dropped a bucket of paint on my head. That is what I mean." She stood up and chased Mandy until she gave up, then tried to go take a shower to wash the paint off. She kicked the door. There was, on the other side, a faint kick in return. Hoshi frowned slightly.

"Either MPS is still alive, or there's a phantom kicker in the bathroom."

"Or both," said Idril.

"They're both equally likely," pointed out Erik's Persephone.

"Should we try to find out?"

"Not now, I'm drinking tea, " said everyone.

Tea was drunk.

It was a pleasant interlude.

Does it surprise you to learn that I can't think of a good ending for this chapter?


	7. Hoops

A/N: Sorry about this chapter. I forced it, which I probably shouldn't have done, but if I hadn't, who knows how many more weeks it would have been before I updated. Hope you enjoy it despite things. And this is fresh, new, and unbetaed, so please forgive any mistakes.

Chapter Seven: Hoops

"Hoop skirts were the height of fashion for many years, eventually the trend became deflated..." Oddly enough, things seemed to be rather quiet for a while, even after the tea was finished, as Hoshi and Adison attempted to nurse Random's brain back into full functionality. Twisted had seized the opportunity to lecture a group of Writers on appropriate clothing styles; Mandy backed her up on several points that were called into question.

"Antigravity suits in the 1830's?" repeated Allena. "Are you sure about that?"

"Fairly sure," said Twisted cheerfully, "though I was being bitten at the time I read that, so I may have been a bit distracted."

"Hoops," muttered Mandy, doodling in her notebook thoughtfully. She sketched out a pair of wings on a bottle of mustard and sang the AEOT song quietly, attracting the attention of Kay Erik, who removed himself from the table and approached her with cat-like tread. She pretended to focus on her drawing whilst glancing up at him from underneath her eyelashes, a small smile appearing on her lips.

"Someone," said Kay Erik, waving vaguely in the direction of the PPN League, "informed me that you have been impersonating me in various places and carrying on— activities."

"Nope," said Mandy, lightly, shading in the French's label.

He eyed her keenly, doing a moderated version of the baleful. "Are you sure?"

"Quite."

"You wouldn't be— lying to me, would you?"

"Why would I lie to an Erik?" said Mandy, turning wide blue eyes on him. "Clearly you could punjab me at any moment. Why would I risk my life simply in order to tell a pointless fib?"

They gazed at each other for a moment.

Kay Erik sighed and stepped away. "I do not know," he said. "I never could fathom any phangirl's reason for doing anything."

Mandy watched him stalk back to the table, exchanged glances with Stalker Erik, and snickered.

"There goes my man," they said simultaneously, and then started blinking at each other. Rather a lot. And a bit suspiciously.

"Ran?" said Adison, waving her hand in front of Random's face. "You all there?"

Random finally opened her eyes and began to take things in, slowly at first. "Don't know. Have I ever been all here? Should I call the role?"

"Why would you call a roll? Bread can't speak," said Hoshi, and rejoiced in the disgusted looks this garnered her. Random sat up and rubbed at her forehead.

"How long was I out?"

"Too long," said Adison, at the same time that Hoshi said, "Not long enough." Random glanced back and forth between them, nodded, got to her feet, and promptly fell down again.

She was up a mere second later, waving away the offers of help until she realized that there weren't any offers of help. "I'm fine. I'm okay. I'm alright." Leaning back and taking stock of the Eriks, who were all staring at her, she clapped her hands together briskly, the combined balefuls of the hundreds of Eriks not staggering her even a little; mostly because her mind still wasn't up to the challenge of being afraid of anything.

"Right now," she said, "I'm operating on sheer bravado, so lets take advantage of it, shall we? What happened while I was— indisposed?"

"We got the fop," said Hoshi immediately.

"You mean, Tori and I got Patrick," corrected Adison.

"Isn't that what I said?"

"You sounded a lot more derogatory."

"Yes," said Hoshi, "but that's only because 'fop' is an insult."

"I know."

Random waved her hand vaguely in front of her face, frowning at it as though it were doing something she didn't quite approve of, like evading taxes or dating Tom Cruise. "So you got the fop," she said, oblivious to Adison's squeak of protest, "that's good. I think. Has he been killed yet?"

"No, he's hiding behind Tori."

"Alright—" she glanced around. "Where's my notebook?"

Reluctantly, Hoshi surrendered the notebook, and Random plopped herself down on the nearest Erik and began to look through it. It turned out to be Chaney Erik's lap that she sat down on; after a few seconds she looked up, their eyes met, and she very slowly got up and removed herself to Crawford Phantom's lap instead, shivering slightly. The more alert phangirls emulated her example, helping themselves to the personal space of their favourite Eriks. A few of them were quickly knocked out, but it was really their own fault for loving the more ruthless ones. Bee settled herself quite comfortably on Erik Destler, Celtic Heart found herself welcomed by a gently-smiling Gerry Phantom, and Mandy and Stalker Erik had a brief tussle over who got Kay Erik, mostly in fun. Kay Erik eyed them both and simply moved away while they were talking it over. He came to stand behind Random, looking over her shoulder to read what was in the notebook; she twisted to lean against Crawford Phantom, holding the notebook up close to her face to hide it from Kay Erik's searching eyes.

"Nobody got Nadir yet, then?"

There was a shriek of delight from SimplyElymas, and Random regarded her seriously over the edges of the notebook.

"Do we have a volunteer?"

"Yes yes God yes!"

"I said, do we have a volunteer?"

SimplyElymas stopped bouncing up and down and simply stared at her with her jaw dropped. Random smiled.

"Come on, you know I have a hard time hearing."

SimplyElymas gave vent to an ear-shattering, brain-piercing shriek worthy of Brightman Christine herself. Everyone in the room winced, a few fainted, and MindGame fell to the floor and rolled under the table.

"That's more like it," said Random, obliviously. She and Crawford Phantom, who was used to Brightman Christine at any rate, were the only two in the room who didn't appear affected. She turned a few more pages. "Alright, you want to go and get him? You can pick a posse if you want. He shouldn't be too hard to find, if —"

She looked up. There was a SimplyElymas-shaped hole in the wall.

"—you really look," she finished, raising her eyebrows in surprise.

"Well, someone's enthusiastic," said Becky.

"No kidding," agreed Regina from on the shelves. She and Mongie had, after taking his money, shoved Patrick Raoul off when the Eriks had finally tired of baying like hounds.

"Another thing," said Random, tilting her head at her papers and smiling slightly. "No one got the OWs, right?"

"No—" said Adison nervously.

"Or the Mary-Sues? I kind of thought people would just bring their creations with them, but I guess they wanted to travel light or something."

"You _want _Mary-Sues?" DarkPriestessofAssimbya repeated disbelievingly.

"I don't discriminate," said Random piously. "At least, not much. I make fun of everyone, just the same. I'm what they call an equal-opportunity snarker."

Sarah Belle ventured forth at this point to hand Random a black mask which she had sewn herself. Random tied it on, sat up straight in Crawford Phantom's lap, and tried to look simultaneously noble and mysterious. She failed.

"I love those kinds of OWs, anyway," ventured Killthefop. "I mean, after thirty to fifty years of being alone and in love with one woman, he sees a girl and they heal each other by athletic bedroom sessions. 'Oh, hi!' 'Hi!' 'Hey, why don't you come down to my lair for some tea and sexual tension?' 'Sure, sounds good!' 'Here's my lair, think we can make it to the bed?' 'Why not do it right here? Nothing says first date like stripping in the living room.' 'Alright, well, I'll try, though, keep in mind I'm a bit repressed, so might have some sort of crisis halfway through.' 'No problem, I promise to fall deeply in love with you no matter what.' 'Swell. And of course, even though I'm a virgin, I'm going to perform fantastically and also do things you've never heard of.' 'Really? Where'd you learn that?' 'I read.' 'Really?' 'Okay, so I don't read. But I'm French!' 'Ah!' 'Was that a good "Ah" or a bad "Ah"?' 'That was an "Ah" of understanding. Everything makes sense now.' 'Ah.' 'Ah!' 'Okay, what was that an Ah of?' 'That was an Ooh kind of Ah.' 'Ah.' 'Oooh.'"

Everyone stared at her. It was kind of hard not to.

"Have some issues, do we?" inquired PhoenixAngel 13.

"You know," agreed Color Me Gray, "it is quite amazing that a lifetime of killling people and being hated and despised and rejected can just— fade into the background as soon as the word 'thigh' is mentioned."

"Ah well," said Random, scritching her pen over the paper absentmindedly, "I suppose you learn to concentrate on the matter in hand."

"Yes, I suppose that must be so."

"So. Volunteers to go after the Mary Sues?" Random glanced around the room. "Alright, then I draft— Mongie and Reg. Go for it, chickens."

"I am not a chicken!" said Reg.

"Figure of speech. Or a metaphor. Or a literary allusion. I don't know, my mind hasn't quite come back yet. Go hunt down some Mary Sues for me, if you please."

The two grumbled to themselves, but got down from the shelves and clambered through the hole SimplyElymas had left.

"Carlottas, managers, OOC variations—" Random ticked things off on her notebook and waved at various people. "Blender."

LuvinLivnReadn sat up happily. Random peered at her.

"Do you feel up to the challenge?"

"I feel oh so spry," said LLR, with a huge grin.

Random considered. "Does that mean yes?"

"Yes, it most certainly does."

"Away with you then, child."

Hoshi hovered around in front of Random. "Boss?"

"Uh-huh?"

"Does this mean that— the story actually has a point? I mean, really? A point other than what appears to be the point, which is lots of chaos?"

Random glanced around the room, at the few knocked-out phangirls, at the brooding Eriks, at the Artists who were now doing murals of the various Eriks on the far wall, and at Mademoiselle Phantom who had gotten tired of waiting, hauled back her arm, and spanked Gerry Phantom soundly, causing him to jump and spill Celtic Heart into the lap of the next Erik, Leroux, who in turn jumped and spilled CH into the lap of Charles Dance Phantom, who in turn— well, you get the idea. It was a sort of vicious cycle, except not exactly vicious, as Celtic Heart was lapped around the table like a chain reaction of only one Domino.

Random glanced back at Hoshi and grinned.

"Of course there is," she said, "what did you expect?"

There was doubt on Hoshi's face, and also some bits of her lunch.

Random handed her a handkerchief and leaned back against Crawford Phantom, comfortably settling her shoulders and humming under her breath.

"What about our requests?" asked Circe Rose.

"They'll be fulfilled, kid, just you hold on."

"But when?"

Random glanced up.

"I have no idea," she said, and they all had to be content to let it go at that.

Eventually they got tired of waiting around and started doing Tom Petty impersonations.


	8. Hushaby Twisted

**A/N: Ha! Alberta Eric strikes again. (He's my muse, y'all.) Finally got this out— and I think my toe is broken, but that's got nothing to do with it, really, and so its alright. And yes, I know that the chapter title doesn't make any sense. You really shouldn't expect it to, however.**

**Chapter Eight**: **Hushaby Twisted**

"So," said Monkey (formerly known as OieCuite), starting a chapter off haphazardly, "anyone hear the latest rumors about Tom Cruise?"

Surprisingly, Charles Dance Erik was the only person in the room who raised his hand. He got a few blank stares before shrugging lightly and saying, "Are you going to blame me if I keep up on current affairs? It's a modern world, gentlemen, we might as well get used to it."

He was quickly despised amongst the Eriks for being a traitor to one of the basic codes of Erikdom (which are as follows: 1, mask at all times except for when the removal of said facial-adornment will further the plot. 2. name is spelt with a k. Not a c. A k. 3. left-handedness is a given. 4. an Erik must at all times have music thrumming through his body in a dramatic and fairly erotic manner. 5. Thou shalt not commit an act of sanity. 6. Must practice evil laughing at least thrice a day, preferably in the vicinity of impressionable ballet rats. 7. Red roses are acceptable; white roses are iffy; black roses are prime if you can swing it; pink roses are definitely not an option; orange roses only work for Random Battlecry. 8. No spitting in the lair. 9. Italics are a wonderful way to enforce your presence upon people, especially if they can't see whoever is italicizing at them, usually because he's behind a mirror or a wall or some such thing. 10. Never, under any circumstances whatever, pay the slightest attention to Tom Cruise.) and also for talking like a Las Vegas performer. (A word to the wise— or what passes for wise anyway— in order for this sentence to make sense, you may need to start at the beginning of this paragraph and skip the part in parentheses. You can even skip this part, if you want. It won't feel slighted or anything. It's a very well-adjusted parenthetical comment and will just get on with its life regardless.)

Juliet Norrington stared at Monkey. Monkey, however, didn't notice, until Juliet tossed a balloon animal at her. This elicited an "Ow!" and was then quickly followed by an involved discussion on whether or not balloon animals actually hurt, even when they are hurled at you. No satisfactory conclusion was reached, and eventually Crawford Phantom stood and, with the utmost politeness, clamped a hand over Monkey's mouth.

"Sorry, mademoiselle," he said to Juliet Norrington, who primped at his notice. "Were you saying something?"

"Yes, I just wondered what in the world Tom Cruise had to do with anything, and why the chapter started off like this. It doesn't make a lot of sense to me—"

"Its not supposed to," said Random, interrupting. She carried on with her explanation even as Juliet Norrington was jumped on by a few jealous Crawford phangirls, tied up, and shoved in a closet, where she joined Stalker Erik who had gone off in search of peace and quiet, and three of his phangirls who had gone off in search of Stalker Erik. "See, a few nights ago as I lay in bed, because I mean, really, what else does one do in bed? I mean— as opposed to standing on it, or something like that. Look, that's really another issue entirely. Take it as read that I was laying in bed and thinking, which I do, quite often, though perhaps not often enough; and I was very nearly asleep but I had a great idea for what should happen in the next chapter of TFAO, and I was working it out in my head and it all made sense, or, well, not exactly sense, but you know what I mean. And I thought, 'I'd better get up and write this down, there's no way I'm going to remember it in the morning!' but as I mentioned I was very nearly asleep and I was quite tired, and so I didn't, and sure enough, couldn't remember much in the morning. Except perhaps the basic gist. But the thing is, it was so late at night when I thought all this that it probably wouldn't have made sense in the light of day anyway, so what I'm saying is, perhaps everything works out for the best—"

No one was paying her the slightest bit of attention. Juliet Norrington had escaped the closet and was now engaged in a knock-down drag-out fight with several of the Writers, largely over the spelling of various bakery items. The various entities of Willow Rose were beating the crap out of each other over who was the dominant personality. MindGame and Color Me Gray were discussing the spelling of Erik's name. The Artists had finished their mural and were now plotting to take over the United States with Jennyfair as the President and Hoshi as the First Sock Puppet, which didn't make an awful lot of sense but they were clearly getting a lot of enjoyment from the discussion so it didn't really matter. Random blinked slowly at the marauding Writers.

"Guys?"

Honeybee danced past her, waltzing with Erik Destler. The rest of the Eriks were once again seated and looking absolutely furious. Random blinked a few more times at everyone and then quietly left the premises.

The chaos continued to ensue without a pause. No one, in fact, even noticed that she had gone. There was dancing going on, there was flirting, painting, necking, drawing, stripping, building, hostile-takeovering, and then—

There, suddenly and without much fuss, was Terik.

He glanced around the room a little and, without hesitation, displayed The Pout.

There was a cry of delight from Circe Rose, and she rushed forward to hug him; Kay Erik, who was understandably peeved to the breaking point by this time, tripped her with a malicious, bitter smile; she went down on her way to Terik and ended up clutching his knees with a grip like death, except more amorous. Terik looked down at her and managed a smile.

"Is this sort of thing going to happen a lot?"

"Next time," vowed Circe Rose, "I won't miss."

There was a slight popping sound and the Gerry version of Red Death appeared. He looked around him, seething with barely-controlled and very-sexy anger, almost sniffing the air (actually this isn't quite true. He was sniffing the air. Its called breathing. Just you try going without it for a while, it will prove disastrous. Red and peeved and sexy Red Death Gerry might be, but he wasn't an idiot), searching for—

Phoenix Angel 13 made a noise that sounded exactly like the squeal of tires as a motorist, recently distracted by his sultry bride who sits next to him in the front seat (she'd been making faces at him), suddenly comes back to reality only to realize that the object in front of him is, yes, a dog, and as he desperately swerves to avoid it he realizes further that the lack of object in front of him denotes that, yes, they're about to go off a cliff, which means he will never again get to enjoy his wife's faces, and as he hits the breaks, they, for lack of a better word, squeal.

For the sake of journalistic accuracy, the sound shall be herein denoted:

It sounded, mostly, exactly like this.

"EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!"

Except with more punctuation.

Phoenix Angel 13, too, lunged forward at Red Death Gerry. Kay Erik tried to trip her as well, but failed, mostly because her feet didn't even touch the ground.

There was a series of pops now, and suddenly Becky was hugging William Shakespeare ferociously, Bee was sandwiched between Erik Destler and Baldwin the leprous king, Fallen Angel Boy was drooling down Emmy Christine's cleavage and, basically, requests were being filled all over the place, indiscriminately, chaos-inducingly, seemingly at random.

Actually, exactly at Random.

Kay Erik took the floor.

"This is ridiculous!" he said, and then had to say it louder because, over the squeals, no one could hear him. "This is ridiculous!" he said, louder, and then had to scream it, because he was being ignored.

"I totally agree," said Random, wandering back in with her notebook in hand. "But isn't it worth it to see them so happy?"

Kay Erik glared down at her, thunder in his face and lightening in his eyes and rain streaming from his nose. "Tell me, mademoiselle, do you make a practice of pleasing people?"

"If I can swing it, yes."

"Then could you not also please me, hmm?"

Random opened her mouth and then very quietly shut it again. She lifted the pen and held it poised over the notebook. "What is it that you want, Kay Erik?"

"I want to know what this is all about," he said. "I am sick of futility— sick to death. If you could kindly, mademoiselle, point out to me what the driving force behind all this is, why I have been drafted, against my will, into a million stories written by half-witted writers, why I cannot simply be left in peace— that is what I want."

She eyed him narrowly for a second.

"There you go being all four-dimensional again."

Kay Erik heaved a gusty sigh and sank back into his seat. "Perhaps it is pointless for me to wonder."

"Yes," said Random, kindly if not encouragingly, "it is." She glanced back up at the highly-pleased Writers, and snapped her fingers. The fulfilled requests disappeared at once, leaving the Writers to glance around themselves unhappily. A few of them started crying.

"If you like," said Random, "I can arrange for you to get them back at the end. Almost like party favors. But for now, Kay Erik grows weary. And if Kay Erik ain't happy, ain't nobody happy. Got it?"

There were some subdued grumblings and sad-faced noddings from the Writers, and Random sighed and pushed her hair out of her face.

"Aren't you all dying to know the point of this whole thing? The, as it were, plot?"

"Random Battlecry is talking about having a plot?" said Stalker Erik. "Does that mean the world is about to end and we're all going to be carried away by giant mosquitoes or something?"

Random glared at him. "Maybe _you _are—"

"The world's going to end?" said Chanson d'Obscurite alertly. " Shouldn't we lie down and put a paper bag over our heads? Or something?"

"Are you_ actually_ going to tell us the plot?" queried Celtic Heart.

"Yes," said Random with quiet dignity, "I am."

"Or are you going to leave it to the next chapter?"

"Yes," said Random, with dignified quiet, "I am."

"Quick question," ventured BelcaniOnTheRez. "Why weren't any of _your_ favourite guys showing up? I mean, didn't you have any requests to be filled?"

Random smiled slightly.

"If I did—" she said. She scribbled something on the paper, and in the middle of the room, a series of men appeared, one after another, a new one popping into existence as the last one disappeared, possibly forever. Rik Mayall, Jason Marsden, Carl the Comic Relief Friar, Edward Hyde, Hugh Jackman, Billy Boyd, Tom Petty, Ford Prefect, James Purefoy, Jack Sparrow, Faramir, George Harrison, Edward Scissorhands, Jareth, and a shy boy with ears that stuck out—

"I haven't found the perfect man," said Random, with an apologetic smile. "Probably because he doesn't exist. But I live in hope. Actually," she went on thoughtfully, "I live in California. But that's almost the same thing."

With a slow and careful hand, she crossed out the words on the paper.


	9. Introduction of a Mythical Beast

**A/N: Total absence of review replies:)**

**Chapter Nine: Introduction of A Mythical Beast**

The people who'd been sent to collect various characters were now returning, slowly but surely. Random surveyed them with a lazy eye; then covered that one with her hand and surveyed them with her good eye, and also with considerable satisfaction.

SimplyElymas entered, arm in arm with Nadir, laughing at something he's said which probably wasn't, in reality, all that funny; the most accurate word for the way she felt was 'giddy.' She hadn't had to catch Nadir— coming upon him in a discount auto parts store, she had simply asked him if he wanted some fun and gotten an enthusiastic "Yes!" She'd been somewhat surprised to find that he was wearing capri pants and a brightly-colored Hawaiian shirt along with his turban, but this was alright. What really bothered her was the white socks and Birkenstock sandals.

He was, however, still her Nadir, and she was proud to be with him, although she did try to draw attention away from his feet by repeatedly pointing at his face and grinning at everyone.

Monj and Reg had found a gaggle of Mary Sues running wild in a field. After some vigorous excercise with lassos, they had succeeded in splintering off a handful of them from the main herd, captured them, branded them, and hauled them off to the Administrative Office. Now, they crowded through the door, mouths open and eyes wide— a group of young women, blond brunette, black-haired, red-headed, silver-haired, and white with a black streak. There was an admirable variety of the species, the group including a modern-day, a post-Christine, two pre-Christines, a saucy cook, a perky understudy, and a paraplegic with a heart of gold. At the sight of the Eriks they stopped dead and started breathing quickly.

Behind them, Sarah Belle entered with Carlotta, dragging her by her corset strings; trincula walked in with the managers, who were chatting amiably and holding hands; and everything was shaping up according to the plan which did, supposedly exist. Jeeves settled into Crawford Phantom's lap and glanced over at Random.

"Can you tell us now?"

"In a minute," murmured Random distractedly. "I'm trying to win a staring contest with Colm Wilkinson Erik."

There was a shriek from the corner, and Mizamour leapt up. "I didn't see him here, where is he!" CW Erik being located, she tackled him immediately. Random straightened up.

"I win by default," she announced. "Now lets get down to business. The whole idea behind this thing was— well, remember we had a sort of agreement with the Eriks at the end of WLIIA? They would come and maybe play the muse for our writing?"

There were general murmurs of agreement from the writers and a shriek of delight from Mizamour, who was unbuttoning CW Erik's shirt.

"Well—" said Random. "That's basically what they're going to do, except— a lot more so."

Everyone blinked in tandem. It was audible.

The Eriks began to shift restlessly, whilst Kay Erik plotted Random's demise.

The Writers felt a bit of excitement grow in them— whatever this plot thing was, it seemed that it would be fun.

Jeeves slid silently off Crawford Phantom's lap and onto the floor, where she hugged his leg and untied his shoes.

The three Ks that were once Willow Rose squabbled amongst themselves in sign language.

OneWhoWalksWithPigeons painted CLE Erik's toenails.

Celtic Heart, who had ended up on Gerry Phantom's lap, was receiving a back massage and loving it.

There was dead silence in the room, apart from all the noise.

Mandy said, "Ran?"

Random blinked pleasantly at her. "Hm?"

"—was there more to it?"

"Oh! Yeah! Forgot, sorry, got distracted. Happens, you know. Um— where was I?"

Mandy exchanged glances with Adison, who said, "Should you punjab her, or should I?'

"Okay!" said Random. "Okay. The simple truth is that they are here to do your bidding. Instead of having to write an Erik for any of your phics— they will simply play the part for you. Do what you tell them to. It'll be like directing a movie. And you can choose whichever Erik is right for your story." She stopped talking and looked pleased with herself.

There was a quiet intake of breath by the Writers, and most of them said, "Oooooh—" The Eriks were too shocked to speak. MindGame glanced speculatively at them and said, "I think we have about three minutes before they start rampaging."

"Remember that bit about the power of fiction?" said Random. Upon receiving nods, she displayed her notebook. "Its written down here, this— what was it called again?"

"I— don't know," said Allison. "What are you referring to?"

"The thing we're discussing— there's not a lot of them— they're hard to deal with— mine never make sense—"

"Ideas?" suggested DarkPriestessofAssimbya.

"Conversations?" offered Gavvie.

"No!" said Random, with a peeved glare. "But thank you very much."

"Plots," said Celtic Heart.

"Yes! Thank you. Plots. Anyway. I don't recall what I was saying, but I think I meant it."

"Plots," said Celtic Heart again. Random stared at her.

"What?"

"You were saying," she said with infinite patience, "that the plot was written down in your notebook."

"Oh right! Oh right! The mythical beast called a plot. The plot's in my notebook, all's right with the world. If its written down, they can't violate it. Power of fiction, y'see. We have them," she said, her voice drawing down to a secretive whisper, "in our power."

This was enough to make Kay Erik, Chaney Erik, and Erik Destler leap from their chairs and start angrily towards her. Destler was subdued without much fuss by an alert Bee, Chaney was subdued without much fuss by Allison, and Kay Erik was subdued without any fuss at all by Mandy, who tackled him and sat on his chest.

He stared up at her.

"Kindly— get— off."

"Make me," she said with a smile.

He tried to push her off but she planted her feet on his elbows and pinned his arms to the floor, then grinned at his outraged glare.

"So, why," said Monkey, waving a hand in the air to catch attention, "did you have people go and get Carlotta and Nadir and the managers and Raoul for? They weren't part of the agreement."

"Well," said Random, slowly, trying to work her reasons for doing things out in her head first, "I— am not sure. Probably because I thought it would be a little extra help for those that need it, to have some of the other characters too. And for original prototypes, thus the Mary Sues. I had it all thought out, see. It got a little muddled when my brain ran off— but the basics are still there." She frowned at her notebook and turned it to one side. "At least, I think the basics are still there. It's hard to read my handwriting."

"But what," said Monkey, further, "about Christine?"

Random turned huge, startled eyes on her, then swept them around the room, taking in the waiting Writers, the unhappy Eriks, the potted plants, and the total lack of Christine.

"Aw, crap, I knew I forgot something."

There was, from outside the door, some noise. Mostly it sounded like footsteps and female chattering. But there was also a light, steady drip-drip-drip. Everyone turned and looked at the door, except for Leroux Erik, who was trying to catch a fly with his tongue. He didn't succeed, got angry, and punjabbed the insect. Or rather, totally failed to punjab the insect. Flies are rather small. He did, however, succeed in punjabbing ElfLover.

The door opened and into the room stepped Emmy Christine, accompanied by a slight young man who was not looking at her face. She blinked at everyone; he waved distractedly.

"For Pete's sake," said Chanson d'Obscurite, "wipe your mouth."

He did, with the side of his hand, and finally turned a grin on the entire room. "Writers! Eriks! Random! I made it, finally, and guess who I brought with me?"

"Tom Petty," said Hoshi alertly. Random sat up straighter.

The young man blinked. "No—"

"Johnny Depp?"

"Uh, no."

"Darth Vader!" shouted PJ.

"No! Christine!" said the man, pointing at Emmy Christine, who managed to close her mouth long enough to smile slightly.

There was a pause.

"Oh," said Hoshi and PJ disappointedly.

"Thanks, FAB," said Random. "I should have known I could count on you."

FAB, formally known as Fallen Angel Boy, or possibly Darth Giloron, or even more possibly something entirely different, gave a short bow and a large grin. "Well, she's Christine, isn't she— if I can get her to follow me around, all will be peace and harmony. She's mine! Mine, I say!"

The Eriks shifted angrily.

"Um, FAB?" said Circe Rose. "I know you're just joking, but really, talk like that'll get you killed."

"Oh well," said FAB, and blinked cheerfully.

Stalker Erik stepped forward and looked the young man up and down. "New here?"

"Somewhat. I talk enough that I'm recognized, though. And I'm male, so."

"So am I," said Stalker Erik, as though he were making a very important point. FAB reacted badly to this.

"Ye-e-es," he said slowly. "And I understand you are also an Erik."

"Ye-e-es," said Stalker Erik in a direct parody of FAB's tone, raising an eyebrow.

"Oh," said FAB, and nodded. "So, not your average writer then."

Stalker Erik put his hands on his hips and tilted his head to look at him from under his rakishly-tipped fedora. "What is that supposed to mean?"

"Nothing," said FAB breezily. "I mean, you may be an Erik and all, but— can you do this?" Stepping away from Christine, he executed three cartwheels and, apart from wobbling a bit as he came to a stop, had very good form. Five of the writers produced large squares of cardboard with numbers on them and gave him a score. He bowed to some half-hearted applause and turned his grin on Stalker Erik, who snorted.

"Brava," he said.

"Bravo, you mean?"

"I'm not quite sure yet," said Stalker Erik with a gimlet-eyed stare. "All very athletic of you, I'm sure, but can you do this?" He sat down, and snapped his fingers. In a very few seconds, Le Chat had curled up on his lap, Random had planted a kiss on his forehead and stretched an arm across his shoulders, Jennyfair was having a wardrobe malfunction in his immediate vicinity, Adison shook a corset top at him, Celtic Heart started stacking up books for him to read, and Boomer was censoring him with a will. He grinned crookedly at FAB, who watched in quiet admiration and then began to applaud.

"Now that we've got that sorted," said Stalker Erik pleasantly, and stood up, shaking females off him and returning to his spot in the corner.

"I'm impressed," said FAB.

"Of course you are," said Random. "It's Erik the Abstract. He does everything."

"Everything?"

"Co-mod, musician, music teacher, singer, writer, poet, actor, book-stocker—"

"Book stalker?"

Random blinked and turned to the corner. "Book _stalker_?"

"Ooooh yess," said Stalker Erik, closing his eyes with a brief and graphic display of ecstasy. She turned back to FAB and shrugged.

"Alright then," said FAB. "But I can still do cartwheels."

"So," said Random, taking up a perch on Leroux Erik's lap, "we've got the Eriks, we've got a Christine, Nadir, the managers, Carlotta, Raoul, and Mary-Sues. All we need now— are some volunteer writers. So. Who wants to go first?"

She smiled at them all.

There was a dead silence in the room, and the uneasy feeling that, shortly, someone would be having some trouble keeping their sanity.

**A/N: For real this time. If you seriously want to volunteer, send me an e-mail please. I'm only going to focus on a few writers; this doesn't mean that everyone else won't still be in it, it just means that only a few will get to do their stories with the help of the Eriks. Thanks!**


	10. Angel of Confusion

**A/N: Let the confusion begin. Remember my whole convoluted explanation of what italics meant as far as reality and alternate reality goes? Strike that, reverse it. Or something. Italics are now alternate reality, the stories that are being written, or played out, or whatever you want to call it. Rest assured that this makes at least marginally more sense to me than it does to you. Fun, isn't it?**

**Chapter Ten: Angel of Confusion**

"This is your, er, plot, then, is it?" Said with an eyebrow raised to his hairline, enormous scepticism, arms folded, fedora tipped. He might have been a statue except that he was moving. And talking. He might have been an ensorcelled statue. Except that there weren't any warlocks about.

"You sound terribly British all of a sudden, Stalker Erik," said Allena, tilting her head to one side.

"I know," he said apologetically. "I was eating English muffins."

A roundish, dark-haired girl with protuberant teeth and a determined stare (we'll call her Rude Eleven) leapt upon him for this. "You moron, English muffins don't make you talk English, everyone knows that."

He ignored her and turned to Random, spreading his arms in an expansive gesture and elbowing the girl in the nose, almost but not quite on accident. "Its not _much_ of a plot, is it?"

"Give the woman a break," said Adison, patting Random's shoulder. "Its not like she's got a lot of experience with this sort of thing."

"Yeah, lay off, precious," said Rude Eleven from behind SE. He took a step backwards and landed both feet on top of hers. Totally ignoring the shriek of pain, he stood still for a moment, eyebrows raised as he patiently waited for Random to say something in her own defense.

She appeared to be thinking about it. Eventually, she shrugged and draped her arms around Leroux Erik's neck; she was sitting on his lap and looked a bit tired.

"And you're counting on this power of fiction thing to contain all the Eriks?" he carried on, once more spreading his arms out to his sides to encompass the entire room. He turned from one side to the other, hitting Rude Eleven across the face and then across the back of the head on the return trip. She hit the floor with a loud thud and a gusty sigh of protest, stood back up and pinched him with a triumphant, "Ha!"

There was a collective intake of breath all across the room. Very, very slowly, Stalker Erik turned towards her, taking a step forward. She took one back.

"Do we have issues?" he inquired, his voice low and dangerous, a bit like a frog with superpowers.

"You're the one with issues," she said, shaking her head. "Just because your aunt was carried off by aliens and your dog introduced your grandmother to the Canine religion and your head was smashed by a wall as a child, doesn't give you the right to act like an immature jerk, lover."

There was a strangled shriek of a laugh from Random's general vicinity. A few heads swung around to look at her and she pointed quickly at Leroux Erik.

With great precision and delicacy, Stalker Erik placed his foot between and slightly behind Rude Eleven's. He leaned forward and spoke into her ear. There was complete silence in the room, but no one heard what she said except for Rude Eleven herself, who paled and bared those frightening teeth at him.

He simply smiled.

"You whiny b—"

With a deft twist of his foot, he kicked her legs out from under her. She fell back and hit her head with a crack on the floor. As the room broke into applause, he took a short bow, picking up her feet at the same time and dragging her towards the bathroom door, behind which MPS had stopped pounding long ago.

In response to a glance he tossed over his shoulder, Random quickly scribbled something on her notebook. The door swung open, revealing the blood-encrusted and very-surprised face of MPS; Stalker Erik ignored her, dropped Rude Eleven in a heap on the floor beside her, and then shut the door again. He turned to the room and took another bow, although they had stopped clapping by this time and moved on to more important things.

"Anybody understand what just happened?" called Mademoiselle Phantom. There was a murmur and a general shaking of heads.

"Are we good?" said Random finally, of Stalker Erik. He nodded and rubbed his hands together slowly, settling his shoulders back with a slight sigh. "Alright. Moving on. There's been some volunteers. And I am happy to announce to you that the first writer who gets the chance to work with the Eriks— is Phoenix Angel 13."

There was a shriek from Phoenix Angel and she began to rush through the crowd. Kay Erik tripped her, peevishly, as she ran by him, but she bounced back up and ran on. Coming up beside Random, she turned towards the crowd and clutched her hands together rapturously.

"You like me! You really like me!"

"Mutter," said the crowd. Random eyed her askance.

"Er— you had a plot?"

"Oh boy, did I! I mean, do I!"

"I was asking you, not the other way around."

"And I was indicating that yes, yes, yes I do! Very much so!"

"Ten points for enthusiasm, at least," said Random, blinking a lot and rubbing her nose. "Alright, you have your pick of the Eriks. Go to it."

Phoenix Angel 13 brandished her notebook at the gathered Eriks and they shrank back slightly, lips curling in distaste. She grinned happily.

"I need Charles Dance Erik," she said. "Its going to be one heck of a ride!"

Never were more prophetic words spoken.

"And— action!"

"_There's a dead man?"_

"_Yes," said Gerard quietly. "Joseph Bookcase."_

"Cut!"

Simply Elymas leaned over to Grace and whispered in her ear. "This is not promising."

"You're telling me."

"I was telling you."

Grace blinked at her and took a firmer hold on Gerry Phantom's sleeve. He shifted and muttered but made no move to detach her grip; he, along with a few of the other Eriks, had resigned themselves to being loved, adored, squeed over, glomped, stripped, sat on, pinched, nipped, tweaked, pulled, squeezed, snogged, squealed at, worshiped, revered, forehead kissed, starred, admired, honored, venerated, dogged-and-bunnied, petted, patted, neck-bitten, shyed, hugged, spooned, forked, sporked, fooned, zoomed, walled, railed, shelved, kitchen islanded, closeted, Hyded, Hardcored, Deppified, blung, double-treed, boffed, handed both lemons and cranes of love, and generally having their personal space repeatedly invaded. Gerry Phantom, in fact, quite liked the attention, though the same could not quite be said of everyone. "I know," said Grace.

"Shh," said Sarah Belle, looking up from her sewing— as the seamstress minion, she'd been drafted to make the costumes for all the phics. "I'm trying to pay attention."

There was, in fact, a bit of drama going on now.

"_No one ever comes back from those basements alive,_" hissed a miscellaneous cast member. It was Twisted, actually, as a few of the writers had enthusiastically jumped at the chance to roleplay.

"_Oh yes?" said Dance Erik with a delicately raised eyebrow. "If no one escapes, then where do the stories come from, I wonder?"_

Phoenix Angel 13 tossed her hands in the air, the notebook and pencil flying out of them. "He's Jack-izing again." Dance Erik, having recently been introduced to Pirates of the Caribbean, had found in it a role model that he was most anxious to emulate, largely in the doubtful hope that this would somehow make him cool.

"Better than Jackassing," offered Sarah Belle consolingly. As if in response— in fact, it probably was in response, given the perfect timing— Dance Erik put a finger to his lips.

"_I wonder if I can crash through that brick wall," he said, "if I run fast enough. Do you dare me?" Without waiting for an answer, he pelted towards it as fast as he could go. _There was a hissing intake of breath from the audience as he ran smack into it, and Phoenix Angel clapped her hand to her forehead.

"What am I supposed to do now?" she said.

"Wipe the blood off," suggested Regina.

"No, not about that! Look at his nice curly fluffy hair! Its all flattened!"

"I'm on it," broke in Sarah Belle, hauling a brush and a blow-drier out of her huge tote bag and advancing on Dance Erik, who lay prone on the ground.

"Shall we move on to the entrance of the fop?" Random suggested kindly. "He's all ready and waiting."

They glanced over to one side, where Patrick Raoul had inexplicably been joined by the picture-perfect embodiment of male ego.

There was a brief silence.

"He looks like Brooke Shields," opined Celtic Heart.

"And that," said Random with a cheerful smile, "is exactly why that little name tag that he managed to pin not only to his shirt but to his chest as well, says 'Brooke' on it."

Brooke sashayed forwards and smiled at everyone. Everyone smiled back. Quite a few of them laughed as well.

"I'm ready for my close up, Ms. Fangirl," he purred.

Phoenix Angel heaved a sigh and began to try and make a man of him, whilst a few of the Writers took Dance Erik by the feet and dragged him over to the rest of the Eriks to let him recover.

Kay Erik sneered down at him.

"You ridiculous little poofy-haired man," he said.

"You hate everyone, don't you," said Dance Erik, with his voice like a Las Vegas performer, or like Gene Wilder on speed. "Why should I be surprised that you hate me?"

"No one hardly even knows who you are," said Kay Erik, sneering on.

"That can't be grammatically correct, can it?"

"And, for the record," said Crawford Phantom, unexpectedly weighing in, " 'I am a friend as well as an admirer' is not an effective pick-up line. Just so you know."

"Well, it worked, didn't it?"

"Did you get to kiss your Christine?"

"No, she kissed me!"

"On the mouth?"

"What possible difference does it make?"

"On the mouth?" repeated Kay Erik, who was determined to make his point.

"On the forehead, like a good nice girl," said Dance Erik, sitting up slightly and folding his arms.

"On the forehead like a good nice girl who isn't the least bit attracted to you, probably because of your poofy hair and the fact that your mask is beige," said Crawford Phantom rapidly, and the listeners got the feeling that he'd been wanting to say this for quite a long time. Dance Erik stared at him.

"Do we have problems that we need to work out?" he said. "Because I happen to know a good therapist."

"You know what's funny," said Gerry Phantom dreamily. "The word 'therapist' looks like 'the rapist.' Isn't that weird?"

This garnered him some strange looks, but he appeared to have gone to the place in his head where rational thought could not penetrate.

"Call yourself an Erik," said Kay Erik disgustedly, shaking his head.

"Alright," said Gerry Phantom, chewing on a thumbnail. Leroux Erik made an exclamation of disgust and snatched his hand away from Gerry Phantom's mouth, telling him in italicized French to keep his filthy teeth to himself. Gerry Phantom didn't appear to notice. "I'm an Erik."

Kay Erik sat up, narrowing his eyes. "Say 'I'm a moron.'"

"You're a moron," repeated Gerry Phantom obediently. Kay Erik snorted violently and everyone else sniggered.

"Could have told you that would happen," said Crawford Phantom, sipping his tea delicately.

"Can we have Dance Erik back over here please?" called Phoenix Angel. "If he's quite recovered—"

"_Help me, won't you help me?" said Christine._

"_I've a better idea," said Dance Erik gallantly. "Go prostitute yourself to the Vicomte. He seemed to like you, maybe he'll help you out. Here." He disappeared for a moment, returning and holding a garment out to her with a friendly smile. "You can borrow my dress."_

Phoenix Angel glanced up from her notebook, eyes narrowing suspiciously.

"What is this, some sort of farce?"

"May the farce be with you," hollered PJ from across the room, then cracked up.

"Onward," sighed Phoenix Angel, burying her head in her hands.

"_Won't you please, please help me?" said Christine, eyes shining brightly, from love or from fever, it was difficult to tell. Perhaps she was drunk. Perhaps it was all three._

"_When you were younger," Dance Erik began, "so much younger than today, you never needed anybody's help in any way."_

"_But now those days are gone," she cried. "I'm not so self assured— I've come to find I changed my mind, I've opened up the door— help me if you can, I'm feeling down—"_

"Cut!"


	11. Gory Details

**A/N: Seeing as we're now forbidden to reply to reviews, I shall have to answer any questions in the form of a series of interpretive dances. Either that or e-mail, although quite frankly the dances would be more entertaining. So if you seriously have a question about something, let me know in the review if you want an answer, because otherwise I won't. Thanks!**

**Chapter 11: Gory Details**

Phoenix Angel collapsed on the floor, pillowing her head in Gerry Phantom's lap. Celtic Heart moved over to make room for her, though not by much; loathe to give up her extremely comfortable position leaning crossways across Gerry Phantom's chest, his arms supporting her, she shifted about an inch and a half, and Phoenix Angel had to content herself with laying her head on his knee.

"This bites," she moaned. "He's doing what I tell him to, but he's also doing it... oddly. Why won't he pay attention to the spirit of the words and not just the letter of them?"

"Because he's an Erik," suggested Mariel Yuy from her position seated cross-legged on the floor at Stalker Erik's knee, actively working on a new couch picture featuring SE, Hardcore Erik, and a ragged-looking tarp.

"Good point," muttered Phoenix Angel, sinking lower against Gerry Phantom's knee and staring malevolently at Dance Erik, who was living up to his name and trying to convince Brooke to tango. He was not meeting with marked success. He had, in fact, narrowly avoided being kicked in the kneecap by an outraged Brooke. "I can't believe him, he's totally screwing up my storyline! And not just him, either, it's the entire cast..."

Brooke looked up at her. "The entire cast?" he repeated blankly.

"Shall we move on?" suggested Random. "Or would we like to sit here and wallow in a little more self-pitying rage for a while? Kind of fun, actually, wallowing." She took a bite of Cherry Garcia, ignoring the envying looks she was getting from Leroux Erik. "Good for the soul and all that."

"Wallowing?" said Polly Moopers from the general vicinity of Chaney Erik, whom she had decided to stalk. "I thought that was an animal..."

"No, that's a whelk."

"No, not that even, something much larger than a whelk..."

"Walrus?"

"That's it."

Random frowned and considered this. "Depends. Is it possible to walrus in self-pitying rage?"

Everyone else considered this as well. There were debates on the subject for about an hour, at the end of which Phoenix Angel felt sufficiently irritated enough with the Writers to tell them to shut up and let her get on with her job.

It didn't go very well.

"_I'm, uh, looking for Christine," said Brooke._

"_She has been placed in the costume department," answered Christine de Chagny, who was now willingly leading the Writer/Actors in knocking the extras out and taking their places._

"_The costume department?" he repeated blankly. "What's that?"_

"Will you stop repeating things blankly?" stormed Phoenix Angel irately.

"Repeating things blankly?" he repeated blankly. "What's that?"

"That's it! I give up! Someone want to take over here? I am now the Executive Producer."

Random looked up from her ice cream carton long enough for Leroux Erik to stealthily slip it from between her fingers. After a moment staring at it, he stole the spoon as well. "Wait," she said, frowning. "You're giving up your story line? You can't do that!"

"I'm fed up with it!" said Phoenix Angel angrily. "Fed up with it all! I should have started with Gerry Phantom or somebody, Kay Erik even, should have gone a totally different direction! They're taking my genius and reducing it to farce!"

"Yes," said Random musingly, "I can see where that would be upsetting."

"May the farce be with you," hollered PJ from across the room, not for the first time.

"Shh, PJ," shushed Nite. "Its alright. Get a hold of yourself."

"I'd rather hold Darth Vader—"

Nite glanced towards Random, who shrugged and made a note on her notepad. A split second later PJ was being partially choked by Darth Vader, and with every evidence of enjoyment. "Thanks!" she called, except it sounded a lot more like, "Thnngxz!"

"Anything to keep you off your medication," said Random in a don't-mention-it sort of tone.

Monkey sidled towards her. "You know, since you went that far already—"

Random eyed her. "Don't you think people get annoyed, what with me putting so many in-jokes in here already?"

"Do you really care?" asked Monkey innocently.

Random sighed and wrote something else down. Very shortly afterwards, a crowd gathered around the spectacle of Darth Vader beating Carl the Comic Relief Friar from Van Helsing with an oversized chocolate bar. Random sank backwards into the Cherry Garcia-covered Leroux Erik, who was looking happier and also stickier. "Hope no one expects me to explain that one," she mumbled.

Ridel approached Phoenix Angel with a slight smile. "I'd like to volunteer to take over," she said, "if you don't mind."

Phoenix Angel eyed her. "What are your qualifications?"

"I speak softly and carry a big stick," Ridel answered simply.

"And this is useful how?"

"Well, the stick is good for hitting people—"

"Hey!" screeched Random, who had just then realized that her ice cream was gone. The rest of the conversation was lost in the bit of hubbub that followed, accompanied by uproar, brouhaha, to-do, tumult, furore, and of course chaos. Somehow things were ironed out between the two authors, and when the dust subsided, Dance Erik was in position.

After a while, he was talked out of that position and into a less obscene one, and an inquiry was started into who, exactly, had given him rum. Eventually, Capt. Jack Sparrow was discovered hiding underneath Mongie's dress. He was enticed out by the promise of a parrot-free room and incessant adoration and was shortly disappointed to find that there was, in fact, a parrot. Random watched him as he slowly accumulated admirers until they surrounded him in a big clump, and shook her head.

"You know, there are times," she said, "when having a Depp character harem really gets in the way. I mean, never mind the overuse of drool buckets, and getting lost in staring at Sands— it's downright hazardous to my mental health." She flashed a rueful grin. "Not that there's much left of that to protect, really."

"Excuse me," said Mariel Yuy, waving to attract people's attention. "I need some help convincing Stalker Erik to come out of the closet."

Random's slightly sad expression turned slowly into a gleeful smile. "What a nasty rumor," she said.

"No, its just he went in there when Erin started poking him again—"

"Erin!" said Jennyfair to Erin, who was looking almost but not quite apologetic. "Stop poking Erik, you know he doesn't like it."

"I do know it..." said Erin.

"Here," said Jenn, handing her the Stalker Erik Wind-Up Action Figure (Almost Life Size!). "Poke that."

She did. It smacked her.

"Plot, please?" prompted Ridel hopefully.

"Terribly sorry," said Random, with all evidence of cheerfulness. "Shall we carry on?" She gestured towards Dance Erik, who took a deep breath and tried to stop swaying.

"_Who are you?" said Christine. "I mean, who are you exactly?"_

"_I am Erik," he said, stepping into the light. Christine's eyes went wide._

"_Oooooh," she said, pointing at his head._

"_Don't be afraid, my dear—"_

"_No, just— what is that on your head?"_

_His eyes flicked up, then down. "Ah. That would be the hat."_

"_Ooooh."_

"Note to self," said FAB, watching with fascination. "Never underestimate the sex appeal of headware."

"_You are quite lovely, you know," said Dance Erik sincerely._

"_I am?" asked Christine, batting her eyelashes and getting them tangled with each other._

"_Yes. I have never seen such perfection."_

"_Really?"_

"_Yes, well, I do tend to go around with my eyes closed. Two seconds, my dear, the pop tarts are done." He walked off and, after banging into the wall a few times, made it through the door._

"Oh dear," said Ridel, and Phoenix Angel said something rather harsher. Ridel glanced at her. "Problem?"

"Lets just get this over with," growled Phoenix Angel, eyes set like silver gimlets in a baleful glare that rivaled Kay Erik's.

"_Is that a duck with horns on your little boat?" inquired Christine sweetly._

"_It's a dragon," said Dance Erik._

"_It looks like a duck."_

"_It's a dragon."_

"_Oh yeah? Then why is the name of your boat the Ugly Duckling?" she exclaimed triumphantly._

"_I just happen to like ducks, okay?" he snapped. _Tempers were running a little high, patience a little thin, and the story was getting farced to pieces.

"_Eef my boobs could seeng," shrieked Carlotta, "dey could headline a show in Vegas!"_

"Question," murmured Satoshi. "Did they have Las Vegas then?"

"Well, not in France, obviously," said Phantom's Heart.

"Wait, this is France?"

"_Aha!" said Inspector Ledoux. "I will now attack you— unexpectedly!" So saying, he lunged, missed, ran into a wall, rebounded, fell sideways and bounced down a flight of stairs, getting his own nose caught in his pants zipper on the way._

"Cut!" shouted Ridel, who couldn't take it any more. "How _exactly_ did our chief inspector get replaced with Inspector Closeau?"

No one would admit to being culpable for this, although Random was seen sitting on her notebook rather hurriedly.

"Can we just get on with it?" muttered Phoenix Angel. "They're supposed to have a picnic now. A, and I quote, tender and intimate scene in which we discover something drastic about Erik that we did not know before."

"I knew it!" shouted Brooke excitedly. "He is a woman after all!"

"No! And shut up!"

_The two of them sat side by side on the blanket, yet somehow managing to face each other. It was, in fact, a rather confused day for physics. They gazed deeply into each others eyes and ignored the fact that they'd just eaten salami sandwiches with onions._

"_Grant me one favor," she whispered._

"_What is it?" he said. "Anything for you, my Christine."_

"_Will you— let me see you? I want to see you."_

_Dance Erik appeared to be thinking about this. After a moment he bit his lip and said hesitantly, "If— if I take off my mask— will— will you put on a fireman's outfit, sing 'It's A Small World After All' and spank me with a ruler?"_

_Christine considered. "Well—"_

"_Please."_

"_Okay."_

"_Alright." His hands went behind his head to undo the string. "I have to warn you though, my face is kind of— red."_

_He pulled off the mask, and there was that terrific sort of music sting that accompanies all such mask removals. Christine stared at him with wide eyes._

"_Look," she said eventually, "that is so not worth the embarrassment of singing "It's a Small World—"_

"_But we had a deal!"_

"_I don't care! It wasn't an equal sacrifice on each part!"_

"_Grr," said Dance Erik, ineffectually._

Phoenix Angel looked out from between her fingers as her hands covered her face. "Is it over yet?" she said desperately.

"Nearly," said Ridel.

"Just tell me when I can look."

"_Cough cough," said Dance Erik. "I think I've got the black lung, Pop."_

"_Can it," snapped Gerard. "You've only been down here a day."_

_They stopped and blinked at each other in surprise._

"Stop ripping off Zoolander!" shouted Ridel. "Get with the program!"

"Maybe it wouldn't be so difficult if we had a script," said Dance Erik snidely.

"What's difficult? You just jump off a roof and die. How hard is that?"

Dance Erik sighed and took a running jump.

After a few angsty moments and a non-Random/SE forehead kiss, Ridel and Phoenix Angel stood over the characters and surveyed the carnage.

"It strikes me," said Ridel thoughtfully, "that he looked entirely too happy about dying."

"I know exactly how he feels," said Phoenix Angel emphatically.


	12. Men in Kilts

Chapter: Men in Kilts

The first phic had come mercifully to a close, to the relief of all concerned— and, as mentioned, by that time everyone was very concerned. Stalker Erik played some plaintive end-credit music on his violin, accompanied by Mae on an accordion and Becky on a kazoo, until they were paid to stop (at which time FAB took over, til he was tackled by his stalker and forced to be quiet... apart from a few soft little noises which are better left unexplained). "That was the first time I've ever picked up a kazoo," said Becky happily.

"We can tell, dear," said Monj, patting her kindly.

Random had drifted into a self-defensive kind of stupor, well aware that both the Writers and the Eriks were unhappy with the way things were going. Nothing— not yelling in her ear, not shaking her by the shoulders, not poking her violently, not stepping on her head, not threatening her, not tickling, not progressively invading her personal space with Cillian Murphy— nothing seemed able to rouse her from this. Until someone had the bright idea of saying, "Hey, its RTom Petty!" and then she was up like a shot.

She was disappointed, of course, but got over it enough, at least, to acknoledge that the show must go on. "A different show, if you please," she added, and with a little encouragement, ideas began to flow.

"A phic called 'Try a Little Tenderness,'" offered Simply Elymas, "where Erik is a lounge singer and Christine is a Barry Manilow impersonator."

"The Greatest Story Ever Told. In which Erik is given the Ten Commandments and proceeds to, systematically, break them all."

"Erik Scissorhands?"

"'Hold Me Touch Me.' Erik is dead and Raoul returns to desecrate the grave."

"'Discover Her Womanhood,'" put in Color Me Gray. "Erik falls in love with a precocious thirteen year old."

"'Dinner At Eight.' Erik must attend a black tie affair but first must learn to tie a tie. He has trouble with the concept at first, thinking its something like a punjab, so he keeps making it too tight, and then passing out, so it could be a tragedy in the end—"

"I want to write one," offered Sarah Belle, "where in every chapter, someone dies, and Erik stacks the bodies in his lair."

Random glared at her. "That's insane," she said. "You're a sick, sick person. Sick, sick, sick. Besides, I already wrote that one. CLE."

"But mine would be better."

"Undoubtedly, but try it on your own time. We don't want any deaths in here if we can help it."

"The Phantom of the Chocolate Factory," offered Mandy. "Wonka!Erik in a mask."

Random swung on her, jaw dropping and eyes gleaming.

"And a top hat," she whispered. "Cruel and unusual punishments— top hat—"

Mandy nodded. "Strawberry-flavored, chocolate-covered Erik."

"Erik with big fake teeth!" said Kit feverishly. They blinked at her, and shrugged.

"Whatever flips," said Random delicately, "your flop." She glanced around at the Eriks, then closed her eyes and concentrated, willing a Wonka!Erik to step out of thin air and knock 'em dead.

The Writers waited with bated breath; the Eriks waited with irritation. Cap'n Jack poked his head out from underneath the table, where he had been entertaining company (Eppie and Erin, as a matter of fact) and said, "I'll advise ye, ye'd have a hard time o' gettin' any other version o' me originator t' come."

"Oh, I'll make him come," said Random grimly, eyes closed and blissfully unaware of the giggles this comment incited.

Cap'n Jack looked thoughtful. "That's all well an' good, luv, 'cept it's a matter of him bein' very opposed to needless public appearances."

"Needless public—"

"Ye won't get 'im to a shoddy outfit like this, I'll tell ye that much."

Random opened her eyes and narrowed them at him. "What exactly are you trying to say, Jack?"

"Cap'n, luv. I'm tryin' to indicate t' ye that it's a difficult thing, tryin' to persuade a man like me originator to leave his 'umble abode, seein' as 'e's quite 'appy where 'e is and isn't likely to wish t' leave a nice 'ome simply for a precocious li'l fanfic such as this, savvy?"

"Um— I got a little lost in all the dropped letters, I'm still clueless. As usual—"

"Ye 'aven't," said Jack delicately, "a chance in 'ell." Then he stuck his head back beneath the table, and the rest of him too, and resumed whatever dastardly, piratey deed he'd been doing down there. Plunder, perhaps. Pillage. Strangled giggles and mutters of, "Arr!" came from beneath the tablecloth, and Random blinked again in that direction.

"—I don't recall there being a tablecloth," she muttered.

"If we can't get a Wonka!Erik, how are we supposed to write my fic?" complained Mandy. Random shook herself out of it.

"I dunno. Maybe we can just wing it. Maybe we could just move on. I mean, all things considered, Wonka!Erik is a really _weird_ idea."

"But that's what I like about it."

"Maybe it'd be better if I choose a writer, instead of an idea," said Random helplessly. "Then it'll look like favoritism instead of my just having absolutely no idea what's going on. Maybe I should go back to sleep. Maybe I should buy myself a white stick."

"Maybe a slash fic," suggested Stalker Erik brightly.

"I refuse."

Twisted nudged him. "You just want HardCore Erik around, huh?" SE grinned slightly, and at his side, Mae glanced over to HC!Erik— the Erik from a Feast For Crows, dreamt up by Twisted, and given body— quite a body— by Mae herself, in a drawing. He was stripped to the waist, kilted, and possessed both a devilish grin and a nipple ring, one of which looked quite painful. Guess which.

He grinned at Mae, and she glanced back at Stalker Erik.

"Would it help if I just drew you another picture?"

"Handcuffs," said Stalker Erik.

"Really?"

"Bleep," said HC!Erik, enthusiastically. "With the bleep, and kind of rolled-looking, if you know what I bleepin' mean."

"I can guess," said Mae, looking slightly dazed.

"Guys, I can't write slash!" said Random. "Sorry, I just can't."

"How disappointing," said Stalker Erik, though in fact he looked rather relieved. HC!Erik grinned again and sauntered towards all the Eriks, looking down his mask at them.

"Bleep," he said cheerfully, "never saw such long faces in me life! Yer all just frickin' jealous o' my rock star status, aren't ya?"

Gerry Phantom glared at him, Crawford Phantom stared at the table, a few of the Eriks did explicit gestures, and Kay Erik took on a contemplative expression as he watched the young upstart, who now picked up a guitar seemingly out of nowhere and hit a few electric chords. Twisted watched him avidly, scribbling descriptions in her notebook.

"You know," said Random, "what I always thought kilted men should do?"

"No," said Twisted immediately.

"No!" said Stalker Erik.

Random grinned crookedly, and got cheers of "Yes!" from practically everyone else. Including, strangely, HC!Erik himself, who returned her grin and strolled over to a grate conveniently located at the front of the room. "Turn up the heat," he called laconically, with a devilish grin, and as a gust of hot air emerged from the vent, he bent his knees and twisted his waist, the kilt swirling upwards around him rather revealingly. "'ey look, everyone, I'm Marilyn bleepin' Monroe!"

There were cheers and claps.

"Oooh, ahh," said HC!Erik, grinning and rolling his eyes dramatically.

"Oooh, ahh," said the audience, half of them thudding and the other half leaning on each other for support as they tried to control their laughter. Twisted looked slightly embarrassed and Stalker Erik had a strange half-smile on his face. HC!Erik struck a pose, legs spread and knees slightly bent, and as the air surged up around him it was discovered that real men don't wear anything under their kilts. Random looked up from taking bets as to what he kept in his sporran to find that the entire population of Writers, as well as a few of the Eriks, had apparently fainted.

"Bugger," she said, "how am I supposed to get a new story started now?"

"Sorry, luv," said HC!Erik, though it didn't sound like he meant it. He surveyed the decimated contents of the room and smiled crookedly to himself, then strolled over to his creator, who was just as comatose as the rest of them, and sat down, cross-legged, to wait for them all to wake up.

When they woke up, he did it again.

Thud!

"This is getting annoying!" complained Random after the third time this happened.

"But I'm 'avin' so much fun," snickered HC!Erik.

"What is it with people and dropping letters!"

"Its called an accent, luv."

"Show off."

"American."

Random looked insulted; mostly because she was insulted. "Look, there's no call to get nasty. I'm just wondering when I can have everyone awake again. For more than five minutes at a time, if you please."

"I'll think about it," drawled HC!Erik, and apparently, over the next several times, he did.

Kay Erik, meanwhile, beckoned the frustrated writer over to the table. At least, that's what she thought he was doing. It turned out he was merely very irritated and was just flipping her off.

"God, what is this? Never give a sucker an even break day?"

"Perhaps you could see your way to setting us free," said Kay Erik icily. "It isn't as though you have anything important for us to do."

"Listen, mister, eventually the inhabitants of this room are going to stop fainting— cripes, there they go again— and when that happens, _something_ is bound to occur. There's tons of Eriks here. The amount of sheer insanity alone could start a fire."

"In order to start a fire, one must have friction," said Kay Erik threateningly, fingering his punjab.

Random sighed. "If you want someone to rub up against you, I'm sure there's dozens of girls who would be happy to oblige."

"You misunderstand me, mademoiselle."

"Actually, I don't. I was just joking with you."

Kay Erik shook his finger at her. The pointer one, this time. "Your days are numbered," he said. "I promise you."

Random bowed frostily and turned from him, just in time to see everyone go down in tandem again. She turned on HC!Erik with a scowl.

"Alright! That's it! Enough fun! Quit playing havoc with my story!"

HC!Erik grinned at her and tongued one of his canines.

"Dear lord," said Random, and fell backwards, landing heavily on Stalker Erik.

HC!Erik grinned again at the room, which resembled a battlefield with warriors strewn in compromising and amusing positions, completely at random, victims of a kilt. "I win," he said happily.


	13. Improvisation of the Mind

**A/N: I owe nearly all of this to Nite, Mandy, Mir, and Twisted, because this was a conversation we had at one point. Thanks guys! Sorry I didn't ask permission! Well, not actually "sorry" but, y'know.**

**Next Chapter: Improvisation of the Mind**

Having sat in limbo for so long, most of the Writers were completely unsure of what they'd been doing when the last chapter ended, and decided to do entirely new things instead. Most of these "new" things involved the Eriks in some shape, form, capacity, or other, and had in fact been practiced by lovestruck women everywhere for centuries. As we all know, practice makes perfect, and at least the Writers were dedicatedly working at it, which gave hope for the future.

Not hope for the Eriks, though. No, clearly things would only get worse from here on in, which is why some of them were off in the corner trying to figure out how to create a bomb out of a small metal box, some Silly Putty, some wire, Billie Joe Armstrong, a Ho-Ho, and a blunt spoon. They'd just stuck the Silly Putty and the wire down Billie Joe's pants and flipped the switch, and were waiting anxiously to find out the results. So far all he'd done was blink a lot and say, "Mmmm."

Random sat and kicked the wall moodily. "I hate this," she declared. "I have all these people and nothing to do. What a great time to run out of ideas." She flopped backwards onto the carpet, hitting her head rather hard, and lay and bled for a bit. Finally she managed, "Ow."

"Actually," said Nite, tapping her fingertips together ruminatively, "I kind of had an idea."

Heads slowly swiveled towards her. In some cases this was very disturbing, such as when the heads had to completely spin around on the attached necks. She shrugged.

"It isn't really a story. But it'd be a nice memory to pass down to your children."

"Eh?" said the Writers, and Nite began to grin.

Shortly thereafter, the scene was set for a small town in rural Parisian Paris; a contradiction in terms that was ignored because it sounded authentic. The Phantom in question was a hybrid between Charles Dance and Kay Erik (which got a lot of daggered glares from Kay Erik himself, who resented not being chosen but didn't want people to think he actually wanted to be playing the part. It was a fine line and he walked the sweet sculpted purgatory out of it) and he had just stolen some bakery items which are so infamous that they should be spelled with asterisks instead of letters. Seeing as FF dot net doesn't much care for asterisks, we will refer to them as Food-Which-Shall-Not-Be-Named, or FWSNBN for short. (They were in fact muffins. But not the well-known sort! These were some particularly thick, cakelike, chocolate chip 'n' evil muffins, mass-produced by Costcoux, which would have given Voldemort a run for his money any day.)

The Phantom, having stolen said FWSNBNs, very sensibly decided to open a black-marketbakery with them.Christine, stumbling on set as though pushed forcibly from the wings, which in fact she had, put her hands on her hips and observed him as he nailed the sign up. The Phantom glanced down at her and scowled, then tipped his straw boater. Christine laughed.

"Black market? What are they, chocolate chip?"

"No," said the Phantom decidedly, and was so clearly on the verge of making a racist comment that the censors hurriedly bleeped it out.

"That's not very nice," said Christine, and pouted.

The Phantom scowled a moment longer. "Well, screw you, Christine."

"Sorry," said Christine airly, "too busy. Anyway I've _got_ a boyfriend. Raoul!"

From the wings, the Writers glanced around frantically. "Where'd he go?"

"I thought you had him!"

"Why would I have the fop?" demanded Killthefop imperiously. "What kind of comment is that to make, you thought I had him, why I never heard such a thing..."

"I just did, that's all!"

"Well I resent it!"

Eventually, Patrick Raoul was located, had the Madonna t-shirt stripped off him, and shoved onstage. The audience watched avidly.

Not much happened for about five or six minutes but then, not much had happened for the past several chapters. It may be supposed by now that Nite's idea had largely depended on improvisation, and the thing about improvisation is it requires more than one functional brain cell. Eventually again, Patrick Raoul managed, "Hey, Phantom."

"Raoul!" said Christine, as thoughjust seeing him, and raced into his arms.

"Oh, Christine! My little muffin with blueberries!"

"That's disgusting," said the Phantom,obviously affronted, but they were too busy stage-making-out to notice. Patrick Raoul got rather into the act, in fact, and Christine had to step rather heavily on his foot to get him to let go.

"My darling!"

"My love!"

"My life!"

"My stomach," complained the Phantom, and commenced chasing Raoul with a punjab, for lack of anything better to do. Predictably, his ponytailed archenemy dropped Christine with a squeak and began to run. Very few fops have the cojones to stand and face things out when there's a rampaging Phantom on their trail, even if the rampaging Phantom is wearing a silly straw hat with a ribbon.

"Muahahahaha!" crowed the Phantom, finally getting into it a little bit, and tripped over his cape."Ow God!" Taking advantage of a leery situation, Raoul siezed the moment and sprayed the Phantom's face withhair care products, then danced quickly away.

"Ha!" he shouted, as though having completed a particularly complex syllogism involving the evolution of toupees.

"Ooohh," said the audience, and ate popcorn noisily. The Phantom slowly struggled to his feet and glowered at them.

"Cease that ridiculous crunching at once!" he said, and, purely from force of habit, tipped his boater to them. "Its disruptive to the performance and distracts the actors and _bloody'ell!"_

"Ha ha ha," said Raoul, and shook the stolen wig at his enraged opponent, who now had smoke coming from his nose. Seeing this, Christine leapt into the wings and returned with a hose, which was on full blast, and-- "You ruined my hair!"

"I'm bald!" shouted the Phantom, with somewhat less than the dignity he usually preserved. "I'm bald and I'm wet!"

"Oh stop being a whiny baby about it!" said Christine. "Honestly, you're so tiresome, both of you. Both babies. I need a real man." She crossed her arms, spraying herself in the face since she still clasped the hose, and shook her head. "I need a real, a real man. Is what I need. Really."

"I'm wet and bald!"

"You ruined my hair!"

"Nadir!" said Christine, and began to smile. "Where's the Persian?" She glanced off to the wings, and the attendant stagehand Writers looked back at her.

"Well, which do you want? Nadir or the Persian?"

"Nadir!"

The Writers glanced at each other and shrugged. "Your funeral." Nadir was duly shoved onstage, and Raoul crawled weeping off it. The Phantom folded his arms and scowled some more, since he was getting good at it.

"You're both morons and I'm not talking to you."

"You snooze, you lose, Erik," said Nadir peacefully, advancing on Christine with his arms out. She ran to him and leaned against his paunch lovingly.

" Oooh Nadir!"

"My darling little moron," said Nadir kindly, running his fingers through her hair and getting his hands caught.

"Daroga!" shouted the Phantom angrily. "Daroga, how dare you!"

"Don't daroga me!" shouted Nadir back, and returned his attention to the woman in his arms, who was trying to kiss him and having trouble reaching past the paunch that had been previously mentioned.

The Phantom paused for a moment.

"...Darogey?" he tried. "Darogi?"

"This!" said Nadir triumphantly as Christine stretched and whined. "This is how its done, you miserable self-pitying lump of lard!"

"You... fizzled old geezer, Nadir!" said the Phantom. "You... lump of... I AM NOT FAT!"

"You are too!"

"I am _well shaped_!" huffed the Phantom, beginning to definitely get upset now. Nadir snorted in response. "The bra is purely an aesthetic device! And screw you anyway!"

"Too busy," said Nadir, automatically. Christine got tired of stretching with no assistance from her real man, and stomped off to sulk. "And fine. Don't expect me to be there next time your sorry skin needs saving."

"My skin is not sorry!"

"It is too!"

"Is not!"

"Is too!"

"Is not!"

"This isn't funny," objected several of the audience members to themselves, but no one was quite sure what to do about it. "Its not even an argument... its just contradictions..."

Nadir scowled, stalked over to the Phantom, and stripped him down.

"There. Sorry. Sorry skin. All over." He pointed up and down the Phantom's body. "Aaaaall over."

The Phantom looked down at himself, glanced up at the audience, glanced at Nadir, glanced back down at himself, glanced back up at the audience, and ripped Nadir's shirt off, taking him almost completely unawares. He tied the shirt haphazardly around his middle, stuck his hands on his hips, and resumed glowering.

"And anyway, it is not sorry, it is unique!"

"Unique," said Nadir, and shook his head. "You, my friend, are delusional. Even if you were not wearing a Hawiian shirt as a loincloth, I should still know you for delusional because of your constant insistence that you are perfectly normal in all..."

"I am not insane!"

"You're not Leroux Erik either," calledSandi fromthe audience, "so don't say that."

"Well, its true! And I fancy this is quite a stylish loincloth, anyway, and it goes very well with the ribbon on my hat."

"Well, that's important," observed Nadir sagely, and nodded, sitting down heavily on the stage and glancing down at his stomach. "But, you should have asked permission first, you see, my friend." He reached up and retrieved his shirt, putting it back on. The Phantom glowered once more at him, to no visible effect, and stalked off to sit in a skinny naked heap in the corner. Christine wandered back in, still shaking droplets of water from her hair.

"My friends came to pick me up," she announced to the audience at large. "Can I go? They're taking me to Olive Garden."

Random sighed. "Have we a backup Christine?"

Adison glanced in the pantry. "A few."

Nadir looked up. "Did you say Olive Garden? Because as a matter of fact I have a coupon-- two coupons-- and I know a guy-- they like me there--"

Random eyed his stomach critically. "I'll bet. Alright. You can both go. Have fun. Don't get in trouble. Well, do one or the other, if they seem to be mutually exclusive,I don't care."

Two windows were broken as a result of the ensuing screech of delight that Christine gave, but at least she left immediately thereafter. The Phantom wrapped his arms about his legs and fell slowly over onto his side.

"Oh, to be passed over for Italian food! The irony of it all!"

The audience sat still for a moment and watched him onstage. In the air there was the feeling of having absolutely no idea what was going on and clueless as to what should be done next; the basic equivalent of watching dust motes in a sun-shafted window. Offstage in the wings, there was a shuffling like rats...

But it turned out to be something entirely different.

Some Leroux-like thing crept onstage and nudged the Phantom with his foot. "What up, bi-- ow my ankle!"

The Phantom released and licked his lips thoughtfully, curling up again. "Needs salt."

"That so!" said the Opera Ghost, scratching underneath his skull mask. "That a fact. You know what I think of that?"

"No," said the Phantom, "and I care not."

"Your funeral," hissed the Opera Ghost, and opened up a secret trapdoor just beneath him. As the Phantom disappeared with a shriek, the audience oohed in appreciation of the stage effects, and Random frowned in some slight worry.

"You know," she said to Adison, "I wonder how many trapdoors there are in this set? Because, um, we're about fifty stories up anyway--" The shriek of the Phantom slowly faded, but did not stop, and the Opera Ghost stood and looked proud of himself. "Oh, crap."

"Nonsense!" boomed a new voice, and Improvisation had had its day, for now there entered an apparition which shall be termed only the Lover of Trap Doors, in order to protect the innocent. He advanced towards the Opera Ghost and eyed him for a minute, then knelt on the floor and peered down the hole. "Alright down there, are we?"

"I'm still naked!" came a faint voice from below.

"Have some pants," advised the Lover of Trap Doors, and tossed some down, seemingly pulling them out of nowhere. From the audience there was a yelp, some startled movement, and laughter; shortly thereafter, Stalker Erik was renamed Streaker Erik to the approbation and applause of everyone except him. "Are you alright now?"

A pause, and then, "I landed on some bricks. They broke the fall a bit."

"Wonderful!" boomed the Lover of Trap Doors, and shared a grin with the Opera Ghost. "So are you pantsed?"

"I disdain the pants!" came the voice of the Phantom. "Phantom has no pants! Phantom needs no pants!"

"Phantom has nothing worth being proud enough of to reject pants," opined the Opera Ghost, to the general snickering of the audience.

"Phantom's shoe size is a plus, monsieur, a PLUS!" came the voice.

"That's a myth!"

"Is it?" asked the Lover of Trap Doors, glancing sidelong at his own feet.

"Well, not in my case," said the Opera Ghost, with an unlovely smirk, "but mostly, and anyway its got to be cold down there."

Another pause, and then the voice sounded slightly dejected. "Yes, it is very cold down here."

"Put those pants on and I'll get you out of there," offered the Lover of Trap Doors, and yanked another pulley. Another shriek came from below. "I _told_ you to put those pants on!"

"This is a very long way down here," came the voice again. "Very long. Very long... long?"

"Pants, man! Pants!" the Opera Ghost managed before he collapsed in laughter.

"Loooong..."

"Pants!"

"The pants are about three stories above me," said the Phantom icily, "thank you very much. I am currently fashioning some from some rocks I've found handy, and it is painful." The Lover of Trap Doors snickered and began to lower a punjab down the the beleagured Phantom, exchanging glances once more with the Opera Ghost, who got hold of himself enough to try and help pull him up.

"You'd think the fall would have knocked some sense into him," remarked the Lover of Trap Doors."

"I heard that!" shrieked the Phantom. "I have no sense! I merely have some rather large bruises. And I should have brought some of the bricks with me, to eat on the way..."

TheOperaGhost blinked slowly, pulling at the lasso. " I fear I'm getting stupider just listening to him. In fact I know I am. I just said 'stupider.'"

"I am not stupid!" hollered the Phantom, beating himself on the head with a stick frantically.

"The thing to do is," said the Lover of Trap Doors definitely, and let go of the lasso to put one finger to his lips and scratch his head with the other. "Um-- well, the thing to do is let go of the rope, actually-- whoops," he added as they heard the Phantom once more clatter to earth somewhere far below. Both of them leaned forward to peer down the shaft. After a moment, the Opera Ghost sat up and glanced at the audience.

"You'll be pleased to know," he said, carefully, clearing his throat several times, "that he is redecorating in velvet and gilt. Not guilt. Gilt."

For lack of a better thing to do, the audience applauded. The Lover of Trap Doors leaned further forward and was just about to opine that if the Phantom kept running around shouting his head off, he would very soon be headless, when he lost his balance and went down the hole, to great merriment on the part of the Opera Ghost, who relished being the center of attention in any case. After a moment he went and took a microphone from one of the Writers at the edge of the stage, which he lowered down on a long wire that the audience might hear the ensuing conversation from far below.

"Point one:Phantom is a hippy. Point two: Phantom is a hippy in a nudist colony. Point three:Phantom must spread love and hand out flowers to everyone."

"Point four: Phantom is a twit," offered the Opera Ghost.

"He's lost his mind," said the Lover of Trap Doors, who was sitting in a corner watching the naked Phantom waltz around blithely. "He's just completely gone stark raving wall to wall carpeting insane."

"And you down there with him, have fun," called the Opera Ghost.

"Maybe it was the hit on the head when he landed the second time?'

"Maybe he was born with it. Maybe its Maybelline," snickered the Opera Ghost.

"Point four: the Phantom must beat the Lover of Trap Doors with begonias," said the Phantom decidedly, and apparently attempted to do so, only slightly hampered by the fact that there were none present to speak of.

"He just hit me with a brick! He hit me with a brick! That wasn't a begonia, you crazy..."

"Nonsense!" called the Phantom. "It is a flower! How could you not see it for a flower, it is so clearly a flower..."

"That was a brick!"

"It is a flower if you look at it properly," said the Phantom primly, and hit him with another one. "Feel the love."

The Lover of Trap Doors rubbed at his forehead and felt the lump instead. "Doesn't feel like love... not normal love anyway..."

"And you would know about that how?" called the Opera Ghost. The Lover of Trap Doors glared up at him.

"_I _know!"

"Ha!"

"Are you calling me a liar?"

"I'm calling you a virgin!" yelled the Opera Ghost, and there was amplified blustering over the microphone.

"Come down here and say that!"

"Alright!" said the Opera Ghost, and did.

One of those long pauses happened, the kind that shift slowly but surely into applause...

The three Phantoms, we're sure, would have loved to bow, but they were indisposed. These things, they say, do happen.


	14. Desperation

Chapter Fourteen: Desperation

In the Administration Office, Random had succumbed to a very vile strain of depression and was edging closer and closer to the open window.

Three more Writers had joined the two trapped in the bathroom, mostly because they had gotten too much in the way between Stalker Erik and Hardcore Erik. For a while they had made lots of noise, and then even more noise, and then the most noise of all, but for some time now there had been nothing but an ominous silence. It was the popular opinion of most that MPS, if she was still alive, had eaten them. No one wanted to try and open the door to find out. The rest of the Writers were beginning to settle down, mostly on the laps of the Eriks. A few times being forced off of them should have told them that they weren't exactly welcome, but it was going to take something more like a death threat and a gun to get that through their heads. Granted, the Eriks would have been more than happy to oblige with that, but the heavy artillery wasn't present to back it up and the Writers were currently playing jumprope with most of the punjab lassoes. An act of sacrilege that was not lost on the Eriks, but at least the Writers hadn't come up with the possibility of tying any of them down with the lassoes. Yet.

"Molly Po— er, Polly Moopers!" said Celtic Heart, putting her hands on her hips. "Untie Chaney Erik right now and let the poor black and white mute man go!"

"That's it," said Random, and made a dash for it. She was scrambling over the sill when PJ caught her by her Please-Don't-Feed-Billie-Joe shirt and hauled; but she clung to the sill for all she was worth. "Let me go!"

"Random! You can't commit suicide!"

"Why not, I've done it before!"

"But it's a bad example for the kids!"

"Screw the kids," snapped Random, trying to heave herself over the sill. PJ clung tighter.

"Isn't that illegal?"

"Gah!"

"Eesh," said Mae, wrinkling her nose. "_That_ was a tasteless joke."

PJ waved at SE, who put his DL on the TBL and RHE, as he'd BYOB'd and just avoided the FBI by joining the CIA, which was a lot like asking what the number for 911 was and, also, makes absolutely no sense. "Hey!"

Erik glanced up. "Let 'er go."

"Erik!" said Mandy, and smacked him.

"Ow! What? It's a first story window!"

"—oh."

"Oh," said PJ, and let go of her shirt. Random succeeded in making it over the sill, and launched herself into the empty space beyond. There was an abbreviated yell and a thump as she landed in the bushes just below, followed by some grumpy fake-swearing and the sound of footsteps, running away very fast. Not for the first time, the group found itself without an Author, but somehow this was okay. It wasn't like she was helping things along in the first place, anyway.

The only difficulty, in fact, with her leaving was the fact that she took Billie Joe and his wire with her. No double entendre there. We swear. This was gotten past with a minimum of fuss and a lot of Erik-fondling. Kay Erik slapped hands away and perched moodily on a chair.

"Do you realize," he icily asked the room at large, "that this situation has been ridiculous for such a long while that it has gone straight past the ridiculous and into the realm of ludicrously unlikely?"

"Big words," purred Kit. "Oh, I love a man who knows his way around a dictionary."

Kay Erik glared at her. It had little effect; she swayed a little and smiled dimly, sitting in a heap in the corner and digging a CD player out of nowhere. Kay Erik blinked.

"Can I be losing my touch?" he worried. "Is it possible that after all this time..."

"Nonsense, hon," said Mandy, and petted his misshapen skull until he growled at her.

There was a few moments of silence until someone had the bright idea of trying to force Gerry Phantom into fishnet tights. It was at this point that Stalker Erik got monumentally fed up with it all. He stood up decisively, Hardcore Erik's arm sliding from his shoulders.

"Fine," he said. "The girl's gone. Right. Technically there's nothing keeping us here, yes? Technically its perfectly easy to walk out the door. Technically there's no reason why this should go on. Besides which, I'm bored." He dug in his pocket for a few minutes, while everyone watched.

Except for Nite, who was petting Leroux Erik. "You're funny," she told him softly, "but looks aren't everything."

Stalker Erik cursed, unable to find whatever it was he was searching for, and dug in his other pocket, deeper and deeper. By the time he was scrabbling around his ankles, Mae reached into his back pocket instead and removed a vial.

"This what you're looking for?"

He took it from her with a short nod, and examined it for a few moments. "Drink me," he read. "That, and a skull and crossbones. I'm getting mixed signals from my own dangerous potion."

"Is it poison?" questioned Mandy.

He eyed her for a long and ominous moment. "Of a sort," he said darkly.

"Then don't drink it," said Mandy, and shrugged.

"You're so unadventurous," Stalker Erik condemned, and popped the cork like champagne. It flew to the center of the room, where Chaney Erik caught and ate it. Stalker Erik raised the potion in a salute to the room at large, and lifted it to his lips.

The few people that were paying attention held their breath. Nobody else particularly cared. Brain cells and all sense of individuality had been destroyed by prolonged exposure to Eriks and the growing apathy of the now-absent Writer. Names were disappearing gradually, and consciousnesses were drifting back to reality, leaving behind the shells of once-rabid Phans. No one thought it was all that sad, either. The time had come, the time had passed, and what was left was disgruntled fictional characters, an Admin Room like a tornado had gone through, and Stalker Erik sucking down something purple. He drained the vial and flung it with spectacular force across the room, where it smashed against the wall. He then stood, breathing heavily and being generally dramatic.

"I wanted some," sniffed Nite. "Greedy."

Stalker Erik drew his hands up in front of his face, eyes growing wide. "I feel a change coming..."

"That's 'train'," corrected Celtic Heart. "Its, 'I feel a train a-comin'."

"How can you _feel_ a train?" asked Mandy blankly.

"Raaaaaaawrrr!" said Stalker Erik.

"Oooh!" said Mae.

"He's writhing! Make him stop writhing, I'm very disturbed!" shrieked MA.

"Aaaaaaaaaaaaarrrrrgh!"

"Oooooooh!"

"_Writhing_!"

"What's he done?" asked Kay Erik curiously. "What's he taken, and where can I get some?"

"What have _I _done to _him_?" spat Stalker Erik, curving his fingers into claws and gnashing his teeth. "What has _he_ done to _me_?"

"He's Hyde!" exclaimed Mae happily. SE turned on her and glared with absolute ferocity.

"That's wonderful," remarked Nite. "You get fed up with a situation, change it. That's a wonderful outlook to have. I'm very proud of you, Erik."

"Grrrrrrrrrr!" said Stalker Erik, or what used to be Stalker Erik, and what still looked a great deal like Stalker Erik, except he was now foaming at the mouth. He had the look of someone who was about to go on the rampage and storm out of the room as destructively as possible. He picked up Mae and slung her over his shoulder, picked up Twisted and slung her over his other shoulder, ran out of shoulders very quickly, managed to grab Mandy by dint of wrapping one of his legs awkwardly around her, beckoned to Hardcore Erik, and tried to storm out of the room. He hopped, really, but it was still pretty dramatic. He knocked a table over on his way out, but that was probably an accident.

Afterwards, there was applause.

"Lets," suggested Kay Erik deviously, "play a game."

He had the immediate attention of the remaining Writers, though the game they had in mind, in all probability differed vastly from what he suggested next.

"You're all familiar with this concept of reality television, I suppose?"

"American Idol!" screeched Monj. "Lets play Erik Idol!"

"No!" said Kay Erik, and glared. It worked rather better this time. "Let us not. We shall not play the Idol. We shall play... Phantom Survivor."

The Writers exchanged glances. It was like the Secret Santa of looks.

"Phantom Survivor?"

Kay Erik disregarded the curious looks he was getting from his fellow Eriks, especially considering that they'd nearly all been wrangled into fishnets by now. He doubted that they could have anything wise to add to his scheme. He doubted correctly. Leroux Erik in particular was extremely intrigued by the feeling of tights. He'd also inadvertently discovered the word "thighs" and was repeating it over and over because he found it very fun to say.

"Phantom Survivor," repeated Kay Erik. "Do you have what it takes? Let us take the mettle of you all. Enter the underground labyrinth. Stay for many weeks. Explore. Kill and eat each other. See who makes it out alive... if anyone does." He narrowed his eyes and held them enthralled. "Its a challenge," he whispered.

It was a challenge that caught the imagination of them all, immediately, and in short order they were bustling themselves off in a distinctly downard direction.

"Is there a Lair underneath the Administration Offices?" asked Gerry Phantom.

"I wouldn't be at all surprised," answered Kay Erik.

And there was; because what good, after all, is a building without a basement? Such storage space! Such dampness! Such rats! The Writers took to it like ducks to a pond, like squirrels to trees, like Ex-Presidents to Viagra commercials. The Eriks, meanwhile, were left for the first time, totally unsupervised.

"Amazing," said Crawford Phantom, shaking his head. "They actually trust us to remain here, even on our own?"

Gerry Phantom frowned. "I don't know. You see, I'd been thinking about it..."

"Ha!" said Kay Erik, rolling his eyes.

"I'd been thinking about it, and what I was thinking, was..."

A pause, while he looked around the room.

"Maybe they just know its time that this was ended. Maybe they know that their reign of terror is over."

"Maybe next time they'll put you in a dress," hissed Kay Erik.

"I think they know," said Gerry Phantom, nodding seriously. "I think they know. Its all a question of timing, after all. Everything is timing, and timing is everything."

A silence while they thought about this.

"I think we just tricked them, actually," said Crawford Phantom. "We're cleverer. We're faster. We did it. We tricked them into letting us alone so we could leave!"

"And imagine," remarked Gerry Phantom, "it only took fourteen chapters." This earned him a glare from Kay Erik.

"Thigh," said Leroux Erik, dreamily.

They shut him in the bathroom for a bit. He loved it. He said it was just like being home.


	15. Last Call

**Chapter Last: Last Call**

"Its quiet."

"Too quiet."

"And empty— apart from us."

"I believe I'm beginning to feel a slight amount of—" Gerry Phantom nudged at his ear with his shoulder, popping his shoulder blade. "Edginess."

"Ridiculous," said Kay Erik imperiously.

"Thigh," said Leroux Erik cheerfully. "Thigh thigh thigh apex thigh thigh thigh."

Kay Erik narrowed his eyes at him sternly, and scratched at his chin under the mask. "One would begin to wonder about you, monsieur, if one didn't already know for a fact that you were stark raving mad."

"Bobby socks," said Leroux Erik.

Crawford Phantom glanced around the Administration Office, thoughtfully. "You know," he said, "this really begs the question of why we are still here."

They were silent; no one wanted to answer that. The room was quiet and desolate apart from the mild humming that came from Leroux Erik, who eventually began to sing under his breath.

"_Stake my honor, screw these guys, oh no I've said too much... I haven't said enough_..."

Kay Erik groaned loudly and buried his head in his hands.

"_That's me in the corner... that's me in the spot-light... losing my religion..."_

Crawford Phantom patted Leroux Erik on the shoulder, cooing softly and soothingly to him. Kay Erik glanced slowly at the masked faces that were the only occupants of the room, shaking his head slightly.

"Don't tell me," he said sourly, "that you like the attention."

There was an uncomfortable shifting that went on, like the gentle tide of the sort caused by throwing a puppy into a swimming pool. Kay Erik took a deep breath and held it.

"Alright," he said finally, "in the vernacular of these days, I'm afraid you all have to suck it up and move on with your lives. They're gone; this is our chance to escape. There's an open door, there's the floor leading to it, there's our feet. Let us utilize them to their fullest." He glanced again around the assembled Eriks, shook his head once more. "We are so pathetic," he announced, and walked, finally, finally, out the door.

There were words, words, words, as there always were.

"D'you suppose there'll be another sequel?"

"God I hope not."

"No."

"No."

"I wonder."

"Not if God has any mercy on the human race."

"No."

"No?"

"No."

* * *

This was the way it happened.

In the beginning, God created Leroux Erik.

A lot of people were worried by this and thought it might not be a very good idea. Perhaps, they thought, it meant that humans weren't really meant to be sane. Maybe there was the possibility that living underneath an opera house wasn't really all that weird. It was conceivable, they thought, that this meant it was something everyone should be doing. And so quite a few of the population decided to emulate this Leroux Erik and his living conditions. They moved beneath a theater, taking only a few weeks supplies and a film crew, thus proving beyond all doubt that reality TV was not created by God at all, but by sinful humans with boredom issues.

A second faction denounced all this fuss as nothing more than a trend. They were the ones that stayed above ground and learned to build houses, roads, cities, families and, in time, the Eastwood trailer park. They learned to hunt, to fish, to forage, to scavenge, and, in time, to knit. They learned to meet, to greet, to commune, to get drunk, get married, to start communities and, in time, PPN and similar sites.

A third faction thought it was ridiculous, this notion of God creating Leroux Erik before, say, Green Day or the Rocky Mountains. And perhaps it is.

But it does give you a very good idea of where His priorities lie.

* * *

**Many thanks and much gratitude and lots of redundancies to the Writers, the Eriks, and my readers and reviewers.**


End file.
